Death of a Dyer (15 page)

The emotional hum generated by his argument with Lydia, and the question that had reminded Rees of Nate’s childhood, turned his thoughts to the very first time he saw Nate as just another child and not the bully he avoided in school. He’d been eight, Nate nine. They’d been sent outside to play while Rees’s mother visited with Mrs. Bowditch. Rees, wary, had followed the older boy to the barn.

“You like school?” Nate asked.

“I guess,” Rees said. He was hesitant, cautious: he knew Nate as a bully and was prepared to defend himself should he be attacked.

Instead Nate directed him to a convenient hay bale. “Watch this.” He unearthed a calico skirt, faded, dirty, and reduced to rags, and slung it around his narrow boy hips. He added a battered bonnet and said in a falsetto mimicry of Miss Shore, “Now, Will, you must never say ‘bastard.’”

His impersonation was so accurate, Rees began laughing in spite of himself. Nate turned his back and mimed writing upon an invisible board. “Take out your slates, class.…” He swung his hips with a little hitch at the end, exactly like Miss Shore. Rees laughed harder. Nate began flouncing around the barn floor, squeaking out instructions exactly like Miss Shore, exaggerating her phrasing and mannerisms until Rees had laughed himself off the hay bale onto the floor.

“What are you doing in here?” Mr. Bowditch stormed into the barn and backhanded Nate onto the floor. “You’ve got the evil in you.” He kicked Nate. Rees lay on the floor, frozen with terror.

He could hear Nate crying, pleading, “I’ll be good.”

“You’ll never be good. Just good for nothing…” Rees heard the brutal slap.

Pulling himself out of his stupor, he scrambled to his knees and peered over the hay bale. Nate was curled into a ball on the floor, his arms folded over his head; Rees could see the blood running from his nose and split lip.

“I’ll teach you.…” The drunken man turned to hunt for a weapon, and his hand caught up an axe handle, thick and strong.

Without even knowing how, Rees found himself on his feet and staggering toward the other boy. “No. No!” he screamed. “Stop. You’re killing him. Stop.”

“You want some of this, too?…” Mr. Bowditch turned with the handle raised. But before he could bring it down upon Rees, Mrs. Bowditch ran through the barn door and flung herself between them, grabbing the handle.

She hung on to the handle with all her strength, her knuckles whitening. “Go to your mother!” she ordered Rees. He turned to flee, but paused by Nate.

“Come on,” he said, and reached out to grab him.

Nate, crying hard and covered with blood and straw, took Rees’s hand and limped after him. He moved stiffly and Rees could see the bruises already darkening his face and arms.

Rees ran straight to his mother, dragging Nate behind him. “We’ve got to help him.”

But she shook her head. “This is for the Bowditch family. We don’t interfere.…” It was the first time his mother disappointed him.

“I’ll be all right,” Nate said, squaring his shoulders. “He does this all the time. I … got caught off guard, that’s all.” Moving quickly, despite his obvious pain, he shot across the lane and disappeared into the cornfield.

When Rees saw him again at market a few weeks later, most of the cuts had scabbed over. But, although he immediately approached Rees, greeting him like his best friend, he didn’t refer to the scene in the barn at all. And Rees was too embarrassed to mention it. So, although the incident bonded the two boys together, they never discussed it again.

Rees shuddered, shaking off the uncomfortably vivid memory. He did not like thinking of it, even now, almost thirty years later. As an adult, he knew the covert conversations between his parents concerned the beating. As a child, though, it had seemed that no one was doing anything to protect Nate. It was the first time he realized his parents could not help, impotent in this case. But he also learned that they were not the harsh figures he’d always believed them. Although his father whipped him from time to time, he never did so, not even for the worst infractions, with that red-hot murderous fury.

Realizing he’d been sitting in frozen stillness with a sley hook in his hand, Rees bent forward once again to his chore. He still didn’t understand why Mr. Bowditch had hated his son so. But Nate had proved his father wrong after all. He’d made good, all right, becoming one of the largest landowners in the county. Rees wished the old man had lived long enough to see the success his son had become.

Chapter Twelve

Rees knew Lydia was still annoyed with him when he went downstairs for breakfast the next morning and found no one. Not even David. Coffee kept warm upon the hob, and leftover mush, rather crusty and overcooked, remained in the spider. He poured some honey on it and ate it standing up by the hearth. Wagon wheels outside heralded Abigail’s arrival, and when she came in he was drinking his coffee. She said nothing as she hung her bonnet on the peg and set the flatirons by the fire to warm. Rees drained his mug, nodded at her, and departed.

As he drove through Dugard, he decided to stop at the jail, see how Augustus fared, and tell Caldwell he’d rescue Augustus tonight. But before then, Rees thought he would stop at Brown’s cobbler shop. Molly’s brother Billy had taken it over upon the death of his father. When he stepped inside, he was assailed by the smell of leather. Shoes of all types were piled on the shelves behind the cobbler, even a few ladies’ slippers, but most of the footwear made here was stout shoes and boots.

Rees remembered Billy as a square-built boy with a shock of dark hair. The man was still solidly built, but his hair had mostly disappeared and the strands remaining were shot with gray. “Will Rees, as I live and breathe,” Billy said, wiping his greasy hands on his apron. “I heard you were back in Dugard.”

Rees reached out and grasped the other man’s hand, slick and gritty at once. “Yes. For a little while.”

“Ah. Still working as a factor, then?”

“Yes. And now I’m looking into Nate Bowditch’s death.”

“George Potter told me.” Billy sighed. “I don’t know what the world is coming to.”

“Do you have any idea who might have wanted to kill him?”

“Other than my nephew, you mean?” Billy replied drily. “No.” He sighed. “The truth is, Will, I see my sister very little. She feels she is better than a cobbler’s family.”

“You and Nate used to fight all the time?”

“Sure, when we were boys. He always had to win. He had to ride harder, win every fistfight, every game of marbles … but he grew into a good man.”

There it was again, that distance between what Rees remembered and the situation now. “Did you ever see Nate?”

“I saw him far more often than my sister. He regularly stopped in when he came to town. Fact is, when I ran into a patch of trouble, he helped me out.” He looked around his shop.

“There’s no one, outside of Richard, that might want Nate dead?” Rees sounded despairing, even to himself.

“Well, he didn’t get along with Thomas, I don’t know why. And Nate and James Carleton were fast friends up until a month or so ago. You’d have to talk to James about that.…”

“Father?” A boy of about twelve cannonballed into the store from a door in the back.

“My eldest,” Billy said to Rees. “And this is David’s father.”

The boy looked at Rees and smiled. “I used to see David in school. Is he coming back?” His voice broke into soprano and dropped again and he went scarlet.

“I hope so,” Rees said. “I’ll tell him you asked after him.” He returned to his wagon, thinking. James Carleton and Thomas Bowditch; the conversation kept returning to them.

*   *   *

The constable sat in his usual place, at his desk, and Rees wondered if he lived at the jail.

The remains of a hearty breakfast had been pushed to one side, and the sweet smell of cider dampened the stink of an unwashed body and dirty clothes.

“I spoke to Mr. Collier,” Caldwell said, motioning Rees to sit by the desk. “He confirmed Dr. Wrothman’s story.”

“How can Collier be sure?” Rees asked. Maybe Wrothman paid him?

“Because Wrothman was there three days. Mrs. Collier had trouble this time, so Wrothman stayed. He was just washing up when one of the hands arrived to call him to the Bowditch farm, the body of Nate Bowditch having just been discovered. That’s one reason Jeb Collier remembers it so well.”

“Damn,” Rees muttered.

“Well, he could still have paid one of the drifters that come through the Bull,” Caldwell said. “I haven’t heard anything yet.”

Rees looked at the constable, knowing he didn’t expect to either.

“And the boy?” Caldwell tipped his head at the jail cell.

“I’ll come for him after dark tonight,” Rees said.

“Good.” Caldwell rose to his feet. “Come around midnight; everyone will be asleep by then.” He guided Rees through what had been the previous constable’s office. A rough pallet made an untidy heap in one corner, and Rees knew his suspicion had been correct: Caldwell slept here. The constable opened a back door into a narrow alley between the jail and a high stone wall. “Park the wagon here,” he said.

Rees looked around him. The Bull sat across the street, slightly north, and the wall hid everything of the house on the other side but the top-floor windows. He nodded; this was as private as it could be. “This is good,” he said.

“I’ll be here,” Caldwell said unnecessarily. “You going to talk to the boy?”

Nodding, Rees stepped back inside and went through the building to the cell. Augustus was huddled in a ball in the corner. “Hello,” Rees said.

Augustus looked up, his expression dull with misery. “Why are you helping me now?” he asked. “This is your fault. If you hadn’t come after Richard, I wouldn’t be here.”

“Your father was my best friend,” Rees said. “Besides, I only wanted to speak with your brother. And now even more so.” He paused. Augustus’s burst of anger was spent, and he regarded Rees in silence. “I’m taking you home, to my farm, until the slave catchers are gone.”

“Aren’t you afraid I’m a murderer?” Augustus asked in a nasty voice.

“Are you?”

“Of course not. I haven’t visited the farm in years, and the last time I saw only Marsh.”

“Marsh?”

“Of course. He is more of a father to me than the—the…” The boy struggled and finally settled upon, “… master. To both Richard and me.” The boy rose to his feet and approached the bars. “Why would I kill the master?”

“Because Richard inherits,” Caldwell interjected from behind Rees.

“And what good would that do me?” Augustus cried with a flash of spirit. “I’m a slave’s bastard; I couldn’t inherit if the whole pack of them died.”

Rees regarded the dark face thoughtfully. “That is certainly true. But your relationship with Nate was a lot closer than master to servant, wasn’t it? He was seen visiting you at the smithy.”

Augustus hesitated for so long, Rees thought he would not speak. “Yes,” he said at last. “He often came to see me when he had business in town.” He grimaced. “He didn’t want her to know.”

“Her? His wife?” Rees asked.

“Who else?”

“But he acknowledged you as his son?” Augustus nodded this time with reluctance. “I suppose you could have borrowed a horse from the smithy, ridden out to the farm, and slipped into the cottage to murder your father,” Rees said.

“Of course not,” Augustus said, his voice shaking with passion. “I wouldn’t do that. He was good to me. And anyway, I wouldn’t have time. Mr. Isaacs keeps me busy, dawn to dusk.”

“I believe you,” Rees said. “But you’d better be a little more cooperative. You’d make a handy scapegoat.” Augustus digested this and nodded. “Did you ever see your father meeting anyone?”

“Everyone.” Augustus smiled. “He had business dealings with half the men in town. I often saw him meet Mr. Potter or Mr. Carleton, as they were special friends of his, but he frequently met others as well.”

“Did you see any arguments or disagreements?”

“Sometimes. But they always shook hands afterwards.…” He hesitated and then added, “I had no reason to murder my father, Mr. Rees. He was always good to me.”

“I see.” But Augustus clearly resented his place in Nate’s family. Enough to kill? Rees thought not, but he’d been wrong before. “Until tonight, then.”

“What do you think?” Caldwell asked as they walked away.

“He’s right about not inheriting.”

“Anger can drive a man mad,” Caldwell said. “A momentary rage has murdered more than one man.”

“Indeed. I just don’t see that fire burning inside Augustus’s belly.”

“So far, most of the town agrees with you,” Caldwell said with a nod. “But if Nate’s murderer isn’t identified soon, Augustus might hang for it. The black son … a much more palatable choice than Richard.”

Rees nodded in unhappy agreement.

At least Augustus would be safe for a time, Rees thought as he climbed into his wagon. Enough time, he hoped, to find Nate’s killer. He turned around and directed Bessie west. This time, though, he did not take the road that ran by Nate’s farm. Instead, he drove down the more southerly route toward the farm on which his old friend had grown up. It was time to talk to Thomas.

The route out to the old Bowditch farm was as familiar to Rees as his name. He must have walked or ridden this road a thousand times. But even here he saw differences. Silas Bowditch’s horses had been nags, gaunt and overworked. The horses Rees saw now were plump beauties. Well, Thomas had always loved horses, and now he could indulge himself. The fields were productive and well cared for, not the ragged half-weedy meadows of the indifferent farmer.

When he reached the dirt lane leading up to the house, Rees’s heart began to pound. His body remembered Silas Bowditch. He urged Bessie forward in a slow walk. Odd, he thought. He was older now than Mr. Bowditch had been then, and taller and stronger, too, but his childhood memories made him shiver.

He rounded a curve and saw the house for the first time, experiencing a moment of disorientation. It was the same, but not the same. The original structure remained but had been relegated to the back with a neat two-story clapboard now attached to the front. As Rees approached the door, Thomas and at least two of his sons followed by a hand or two began running toward him. Rees pulled Bessie up a few feet from the steps and jumped down to wait for his old childhood friend.