Hornswoggled - An Alafair Tucker Mystery

by Donis Casey

  Chapter Twenty

  It was nearly supper time before Alafair got home, after the time spent collecting the girls from Hattie’s, and Grace and the boys from Grandma’s, and recounting the afternoon’s events to their astonished relatives. Shaw and the boys drove the wagon to the barn, and Alafair sent the little girls to their room to change clothes while she nursed Grace. Martha volunteered to change the baby, so Alafair gratefully sat down in her rocking chair in the front room and removed her shoes before she went into the kitchen to rummage up something for supper. She found Mary and Ruth already laying the table.

  “Hey, Mama,” Ruth greeted her. “Martha says we missed a bunch of excitement. We started cooking when we heard y’all drive through the gate. Mary already made up a pot of rice.”

  “Thank you,” Alafair sighed. “It’s been quite the day. I’m glad y’all girls are home. I expected to have to send Charlie-boy over to Phoebe’s to fetch you.”

  “We’ve been home a while,” Ruth told her. “I wanted to play my piano, and Mary came with me.” She gave her mother a sly smile. “Her and Kurt sat on the porch a spell.”

  Mary shot her little sister a sour look, but after what she had been through earlier, Alafair felt curiously unmoved by Mary’s tryst. She tied her apron around her waist and picked up her big wooden spoon to stir the rice. “Where’s Alice? She stay at Phoebe’s?” she asked.

  Mary turned around from the cabinet to look at Alafair. Her forehead wrinkled. “Alice?” she said.

  Something—the way Mary looked at her, the tone of her voice, the way the breeze blew in from the window—caused Alafair’s heart to skip a beat. She froze with her wooden spoon poised in the air.

  “I thought Alice went to the preacher’s for dinner with you,” Mary finished, baffled, but innocent and unconcerned. “When she didn’t come home with you, I expected she stayed at Aunt Josie’s.”

  Alafair didn’t reply. She turned on her heel and walked out of the kitchen, through the parlor, and right out the front door, leaving her daughters staring after her, openmouthed. She was down the porch steps and half way to the road when her brain finally re-engaged.

  She’s a grown woman, Alafair thought, not slowing down at all. She’s old enough to make her own decisions, however bad. It’s not my place to save her from herself.

  She reached the road and turned toward town, walking faster and faster all the while. Her arms were pumping like pistons, and she was still clutching the wooden spoon in her fist.

  She’s all grown up, Alafair repeated to herself. He wouldn’t be the one I’d pick for her, but it’s her choice, after all. If she doesn’t care that people will talk about her, that’s her lookout. There’s nothing I can do about it.

  By then Alafair was half way to town, her bare feet skimming the dirt road as she walked faster and faster. The look on her face was grim and angry, but two or three tears ran unheeded down her face.

  The sun was just sinking below the horizon when she reached the town limits. She stalked down Main Street and turned up Third to Elm before she grabbed her skirt in her free hand and broke into a run. She took the steps up Walter Kelley’s front porch in two bounds and flung open the door.

  She was in the bedroom before they had time to react, and there she caught them, all in a state of breathless disarray. Walter jumped out of the bed, clutching the sheet to his middle, and Alice struggled to sit up.

  “Mama!” Alice gasped.

  But Alafair didn’t hear her. Nor did she pause, as everything before her eyes went red.

  ***

  By the time Alafair got home, riding on a blaze mare that she had borrowed from her sister-in-law Josie Cecil, it was dark. Shaw was standing in the middle of the road, pacing up and down with his hands on his hips. He walked up to her when she reined in and seized the horse’s bridle. Husband and wife gazed at one another in silence for a moment.

  “Y’all eat?” Alafair asked, at length.

  “Yes,” Shaw said.

  “Kids in bed?”

  “Little ones are,” Shaw told her.

  “Did Mary tell you?”

  “Yes.”

  “So you know where I’ve been.”

  Shaw nodded. “I figured it out.”

  Alafair looked off into the distance, then back down at the ashen-faced man standing at her stirrup. “They’ll be here directly,” she said to him.

  “I don’t want to see them,” Shaw said.

  “He’s going to ask you for her hand,” Alafair continued, as though he hadn’t spoken.

  “It don’t seem that they much cared for my permission before now.”

  “Shaw…” Alafair began, but he cut her off.

  “No, Alafair,” he said. “I don’t know what you told them, but as far as I’m concerned, they can suit themselves. But I ain’t giving them my blessing, that’s for sure. They lied to us and snuck around behind our backs like a couple of thieves.”

  Alafair blinked at him. He didn’t even know the half of it, and she had promised Alice that she had no intention of telling him. She swung down off the horse and landed six inches from his face. She put her hands on his shoulders. “Please, Shaw, please,” she breathed. “I know they done bad, but don’t turn them away. I’m mad, too, but we can forgive them, can’t we?”

  Shaw looked down at her, surprised at the urgency of her plea. “But, Alafair, they…”

  “Shaw,” she interrupted, struggling not to cry, “please. She’s my baby. I don’t care what she did. I don’t want to lose her.”

  Shaw put his arms around her and sighed a deep sigh.

  ***

  Walter and Alice drove up to the house not fifteen minutes later in his Ford touring car. Shaw was sitting on the porch swing with a coal-oil lantern beside him, alone. He did not get up. The young people eyed the father uncertainly for a while, before Walter slowly stepped out of the automobile and walked to the foot of the steps like a man going to his own hanging. Alice climbed out behind him.

  “I come to talk to you about Alice, Mr. Tucker,” Walter opened.

  Shaw ignored him. “Alice, go into the house,” he said.

  Alice surveyed her father’s face anxiously for any sign that Alafair had told him how she had found them in a compromising position. She was relieved to see that Shaw appeared angry and disappointed, but not murderous. He didn’t know. “Daddy,” she managed, “it’s all my fault. Please don’t blame Walter.”

  “Go into the house, Alice,” Shaw repeated. “I’ll talk to you later.”

  Alice obeyed reluctantly, walking up the steps and passing Shaw gingerly as she went inside. Shaw’s hazel eyes followed his daughter until she disappeared through the screen. His expression was unreadable. He looked back at Walter, still standing in the yard below the porch.

  “By all rights, I ought to forbid you to ever see Alice again,” he began.

  “Yes, sir,” Walter said glumly.

  “You’re a liar and a cheat.”

  “Yes, sir,” Walter agreed.

  “I don’t blame Alice,” Shaw informed him. “She’s just a young girl and innocent about the world.” His voice raised a little as he warmed to his subject. “But you’re a man, and if nothing else, your word ought to be worth something. Which it ain’t.”

  “Yes, sir,” Walter jumped in. “I should never have agreed to see Alice before the month was up, I know it. I’m a weak man. I’m like a bee drawn to the sweetest flower in the world. I love Alice, Mr. Tucker. I want to marry her. I’ll take real good care of her, and I swear I’ll never willingly give her cause to be unhappy.”

  Shaw eyed the man in the shadows quietly for a second. “Did the sheriff come by and tell you who it was done in your wife?” he asked.

  “Why, yes, he come by this evening.”

  “Was Alice there?”

  Walter swallowed. “Yes, she was, but the sheriff didn’t see her.”

  Shaw grunted. “Miz Tucker thinks I ought to let you all go on and get married. She d
oesn’t want for Alice to be divided from the family. So for my wife’s sake, I’m going to let this happen without a fuss. But I’m telling you that I was never so disappointed in anyone in my life. It’s going to be a tall job for me to ever trust you again.”

  “I’ll see to it that you never again have cause to doubt me, Mr. Tucker,” Walter told him. His voice had brightened considerably.

  “Well, come on up here, then,” Shaw ordered, “and look me in the eye.”

  Walter walked up the steps and into the golden circle of light cast by the coal-oil lamp on the little table by the swing, and for the first time Shaw could see his face clearly.

  “What in the world happened to you?” Shaw exclaimed.

  Walter looked back at him out of a hugely swollen and rapidly purpling eye. A long, raw cut ran straight as a plumb line across his forehead. He unconsciously raised his hand to his wounds. “Wooden spoon,” he said balefully. He touched the crown of his head. “You should feel the goose egg under my hair.”

  Shaw burst into laughter. “I’ll swear,” he managed, “I do have some fearsome women.”

  Walter gave him a sheepish grin, and Shaw struggled to contain himself. “Well,” Shaw managed at last, “I guess I’d better not ask you to come in, then.” He shook his head, serious again. “I’m still mighty angry, don’t be fooled. Go on home, now. I’ll come into town tomorrow and we’ll get this straightened out. Don’t try to contact Alice until I say, not if you ever want her to be a part of this family again.”

  “Yes, sir, Mr. Tucker,” Walter acquiesced meekly.

  Shaw stood on the porch and watched Walter as he drove away, suddenly feeling much happier.

  ***

  Alice Tucker married Walter Kelley on a May morning, in her parents’ parlor, with her parents and siblings present, along with her grandparents, several aunts and uncles, many of her girlfriends, and a dozen or so cousins. She was married by her great-uncle, George Tucker, lay preacher and mayor of Boynton. Alice wore her dove- and slate-gray suit with the hobble skirt and peplum jacket, and a sweeping picture hat with three long, jet black feathers in the band across the front. After the ceremony, the family sat down to a wedding feast of slow-roasted beef, brown sugar glazed ham, and a couple of baked chickens with cornbread dressing. There were ten pies: two each of cherry, peach, apple, pecan, one gooseberry, one chess, as well as one fine white frosted sheet cake.

  After dinner, the newlyweds drove away in the groom’s Ford with their luggage strapped in the back, on their way into town to catch the three o’clock to Muskogee, where they would take the train all the way to St. Louis for a week-long wedding trip.

  The men and boys and younger children went outside to sit in chairs under the elms beside the house and smoke and talk or to play, while the women cleaned up the feast. As the afternoon progressed, the weather began to deteriorate. The towering white clouds darkened and lowered, and the wind freshened and changed directions. When the branches on the elms began to whip in the wind and fat raindrops splatter the dust, some families gathered themselves up and headed home. By the time rain began to fall in earnest, only Alafair and Shaw, their children, including Phoebe and her husband John Lee, Shaw’s young brother Bill McBride, and Grandma and Grandpapa were left to gather in the front room. Alafair and Martha lit some kerosene lamps as the storm clouds dimmed the daylight.

  Alafair sat down in an empty chair close by the bedroom door, where she could watch her family undisturbed and rest her tired feet. For a few minutes, she observed Phoebe’s husband, John Lee Day, as he sat beside his wife and gazed at her, his liquid eyes full of adoration. John Lee fit into the family like a hand into a glove. It was hard for Alafair to think of him any differently than she did Gee Dub or Charlie, and even Shaw treated him like one of his sons. John Lee had no blood relations in the vicinity any more. He was theirs and they were his. Alafair loved John Lee, because he loved Phoebe.

  It would never be that way with Walter Kelley, Alafair feared. Maybe after years of making Alice blissfully happy, she prayed.

  “You’re looking mighty thoughtful,” Grandma Sally said, as she slid into an empty chair next to Alafair.

  Alafair started out of her reverie and laughed. “Oh, I was just thinking about my new son-in-law.”

  “Alice looked like she was about to take right off into the air with happiness.”

  “I expect,” Alafair begrudged.

  Sally’s mouth quirked at Alafair’s response. “However, you and Shaw looked like you was about to bust into flames.”

  Alafair emitted a breathy laugh and sat back in her chair, stretching her legs out before her. She sighed. “She lied to us, Ma,” she said at length.

  Sally’s eyebrows raised. “Did she, now?”

  Alafair shook her head sadly. “Led us ’round the garden path. In fact, we were pretty much hornswoggled, like Scott enjoys saying. They promised me and Shaw that they’d stay apart for a month, but they only lasted out a couple or three weeks.”

  “Hmph,” Sally commented.

  Alafair hesitated, then gave her mother-in-law a sidelong glance. “It was worse than that,” she said, under her breath.

  A knowing look crossed Sally’s face, but she didn’t say anything.

  “I’m so disappointed in her, Ma,” Alafair admitted. “This wedding was harder than all get out for me and Shaw. I could hardly look at her. And she was so happy she didn’t even notice.”

  “But you gave them a nice wedding. Why didn’t you and Shaw disown her? Why didn’t you throw her out on her behind and let her fend for herself?”

  Alafair blinked at her, surprised. “Shaw doesn’t know the whole story, and if he did, he’d blame Walter. And as for me, well, she’s my girl.”

  Sally smiled. “There you go.”

  “I hope you don’t think badly of Alice, now, Ma,” Alafair said anxiously.

  “No, honey,” Grandma assured her. “There’s nothing new under the sun.”

  “And you won’t tell Shaw?”

  “I won’t.”

  “Alice can’t see nothing bad in Walter, and I can’t see nothing good,” Alafair mused. “Ain’t it funny how people fool themselves? Just like that mess with Louise Kelley. Talk about hornswoggled! Nellie Tolland blamed Walter for Louise’s pretend suicide, so she thought it was justice to make it look like he murdered her. Then, because he had done them a kindness once, Mr. and Miz Grant just knew for a fact that the man they wanted for their daughter would never kill his wife, no matter how it looked. They thought it was all right to fix it to seem he couldn’t have possibly done it. And Miz Bellows! She’d rather see the Devil attacking her saint of a husband than believe the evidence of her own eyes—that he was a cheater. Poor old Louise was just a canvas that they all painted their own truth on.

  “Sometimes I think everybody makes up the world they live in. We’re all so sure of how things are, that we have to try and twist the world around to fit our idea of it. And I guess I’m as bad as anybody.”

  She paused for a moment, thinking, then flicked a glance at Sally. “Any of your kids ever disappoint you?”

  “Every one of my kids has broke my heart,” Sally assured her. “And every one has brought me the greatest joy in life.”

  Alafair nodded. “You know, I was just remembering when Alice was, oh, about six,” she mused. “She had this rubber-headed doll. Called him Harvey. I didn’t realize that Harvey’s bedroom was in the stove. She put him to bed one night real snug all tucked in with his little blanket, and the next morning I fired up the stove all happy and unknowing and melted poor old Harvey’s little head all over my nice clean oven. Alice was heartbroken. I’d killed Harvey, don’t you know. ‘It’s so cruel, Mama,’ she hollered. ‘It’s just cruel as knives!’ That’s the way I feel right now—like a knife in the heart, like the knife that killed the unfortunate Louise Kelley. It’s just cruel as knives.”

  Thunder rumbled in the distance, and then closer, and the rain intensified, pounding noi
sily on the tin roof.

  “Looks like a frog-strangler,” Bill observed.

  Sophronia appeared at Alafair’s side and pushed herself up into the circle of her mother’s arm. “I don’t like the thunder, Mama,” she fretted.

  Charlie turned around in his seat and gave his sister a disdainful look. “Thunder can’t hurt you, silly. It’s the lightning that’ll fry you.”

  “Stop teasing the girls, Charlie-boy,” Alafair admonished. Lightning flashed again, and the thunder followed quickly, loud and ominous. The branches of the trailing rose bush next to the house lashed against the window. Blanche got up from her seat on the rug and snuggled herself into the space between her mother and grandmother.

  “It’s gotten about as dark as nightfall,” Mary said nervously.

  Shaw put his arm around Ruth, who had pressed herself into his side. “Ruthie, why don’t you play us a tune on the piano?” he said. “In fact, Papa, didn’t I see that you brought your pipe case into the house earlier?”

  “I did, son,” Grandpapa Peter affirmed. “And I agree that this here is an excellent time to be playing some music. Gee Dub, my boy, you been practicing on your daddy’s old guitar?”

  “I have, sir,” Gee Dub said.

  “Well, go fetch it, then, and if you can find that mandolin y’all used to have, your uncle Bill has been known to pick a tune. Sally, do you have your little flute?”

  “It’s a wedding, Peter. I brung my little flute in my bag,”

  “Bring all the instruments you can find, son,” Shaw said to Gee Dub.

  Grandpapa removed his uillean pipe from its case, lay it across his lap, and pumped the bag with his arm. Ruth seated herself at the piano. The pipe began to come to life, the drone whining low against the backdrop of the wind and the drum of the rain.

  Charlie jumped to his feet. He wanted to play something, too, so John Lee took him out to the kitchen, where they retrieved some spoons and pans for themselves and the little girls, to keep time.

  Five minutes later the makeshift orchestra was seated and ready in the parlor as the weather darkened and the gale pounded around them. Grandpapa Peter started out with a long drone, then his fingers moved surely on the chanter, all eyes on him, until his musicians recognized the strains of Old Torn Petticoat. Uncle Bill McBride picked up the tune on his mandolin, Grandma Sally on her flute. Ruth and Gee Dub jumped in with their chords, and Martha and Shaw on their fiddles entered on the chorus. Once all the instruments were engaged, the percussion section, who outnumbered the rest of the orchestra, began their stirring, syncopated beat, rattle, pat, jangle, and blow. The thunder boomed. The rain crashed, and the branches scratched at the window as though they were frantic to get into the house. Grace, patting her hands to the music with Mary’s help, laughed and burbled. John Lee Day, not yet a fully indoctrinated Campbellite, leaped to his feet and pounded a dance on the wooden floor.