Heaven Sent (49 page)
She tried to concentrate on the decisions she had made last night and this morning. How she would learn to tolerate the whiskey business, while continuing to disapprove of it. She would not be a part of it. Somehow, having those men waiting around to buy liquor from her husband made her feel that she was a part of it. That she
did
condone it.
It
made her ashamed. She shouldn't be simply ignoring the existence of those men, she should be encouraging them to give up their sinful devotion to strong drink.
Realizing her duty, Hannah filled the coffee pot and put it on the stove.
Pathkiller and his men sat together, occasionally talking, but mostly just trying to outlive the boredom of the moment. Watson could return anytime and they needed to be ready, but he might not return for hours, so they remained relaxed yet alert. Nothing could have surprised them more than Mrs. Watson suddenly appearing at the back step.
"I'm sure you gentlemen are getting tired and hungry," she said sweetly. "I've got a batch of butter cookies just coming out of the oven and some fresh brewed coffee. Why don't you come in and have some?"
The men were stunned. After her earlier behavior, they didn't figure she would have a word to say to them. Now she was inviting them into the house. The two cohorts looked to Pathkiller for guidance.
He quickly considered his options. To refuse would look strange. No man would turn down coffee and food if he was just sitting around, especially if that food was prepared by a woman. And cookies were something that a man couldn't make over a camp fire. They were not a thing to be sneered at.
Pathkiller rose and the other two with him.
"That's very nice of you, Mrs. Watson. We'd be delighted."
The three tromped into the house and Hannah had them sit at the kitchen table. She poured a cup of coffee for each of them and placed a bowl of sugar and a pitcher of milk in the middle of the table and urged them to help themselves. The kitchen smelled wonderfully and the men found themselves forgetting the seriousness of their mission as she handed each of them a plate with at least a dozen cookies for each man.
Hannah wanted their mouths full, because she intended to be doing most of the talking. When she saw that they had what they needed and were all busily consuming their unexpected treat, she picked up her Bible from the counter where she had laid it and began reading from the passages that she had marked.
"And they shall say unto the elders of his city, this our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard, and all men of the city shall stone him with stones."
Pathkiller stopped chewing abruptly and nearly choked on the tasty morsel he was consuming. He looked at the other two, who were just as astonished as himself. He thought that he had seen everything, but he had never heard of having the Bible read to you when you visited the whiskey peddler.
"But they also have erred through wine, and through strong drink are out of the way."
Hannah continued her reading without pause. These men might not be led away from their chosen path, but she was sure that hearing the words of the Good Book could do them nothing but good.
"They are swallowed up of wine, they are out of the way through strong drink; they err in vision, they stumble in judgment…"
Tom Quick sat patiently in the woods. He had been as surprised as the others at her invitation and worried that it might be a trick. Now after better than half an hour waiting for them to come back out of the house, he was getting a little concerned.
He heard
Wilson
coming up behind him and turned his attention to the deputy.
"Have you found that still?" he asked.
"
Marshall
, I'm not sure there is one."
"Of course there is one. Do you think he makes this liquor from thin air?"
"Well," the deputy told him firmly, "it must be in the house or one of the outbuildings. We've searched every inch of ground within a mile. There is no shack, no cave, no dugout, nothing."
Tom Quick's face was a mask of displeasure. He had counted on finding that still before they nailed Watson.
It
would insure that he had no bargaining chips. He looked off over the horizon toward the road. He didn't see any sign of Watson. Perhaps there was time to find it yet.
"The Indians are all in the house. I don't know what they are doing, but they're bound to keep that woman occupied. You and your men scout around those outbuildings."
The deputy nodded as the old man continued.
"Get some long sticks and check for hidden cellars under those buildings. I want everything including the outhouse looked over completely."
"Yes, sir," the deputy replied.
"And
get somebody up to have a look in that cabin, they've been in there too long. I want to know what's going on."
"I'll
do it myself," he replied and headed off to give the men their orders.
Quick continued to keep watch. Within a few minutes he could see the deputies making their way stealthily to the outbuildings. He saw
Wilson
slowly moving from obstacle to obstacle trying to get closer to the house. Finally he was on the ground near the back door. He remained seated there for several minutes as the
marshall
watched. Then he made his slow careful retreat in the same manner in which he had come.
The
marshall
waited patiently as the minutes dragged on, knowing that
Wilson
could not afford to hurry and be seen. Finally he heard him coming back through the woods.
"What's happening in there?"
"They're having a damn prayer meeting!"
"What?"
"She's reading the Bible and they're singing hymns. You wouldn't believe it. Hell, I'd never a guessed that Pathkiller could sing like that."
Tom Quick stared at his deputy, totally dumbfounded. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw movement on the horizon. He turned his attention that way and
Wilson
quickly followed his glance. The whiskey man was returning home.
Henry Lee held the horse at a leisurely pace as he scanned the horizon. He was nervous, but then he had a right to be. There were men out there watching him. Men who wanted to put him in jail. He had better plans for his future than that.
Following his instinct may have saved him, that and a few friends. If he hadn't had such a terrible feeling about the note, he might well have ignored it. That would have been a disaster.
When he'd arrived at Zanola's, her place was just closing up. She was surprised to see him.
"I
sent a boy out to your house," she told him. "He says he left you a note."
"He
did."
Henry Lee pulled the note out of his pocket and showed it to her. "I can't read, so I came to find out what it says."
"You best be getting someone to teach you, this is too dangerous a world to go about it like a blind man."
She invited him into the tack room of the barn, which doubled as the office for her business.
"A
man come riding in this afternoon from
Okmulgee
," she told him. "Seems he works for a friend of yours name of Harjo." Henry Lee felt a wave of anxiety wash over him.
"This Harjo fellow's got a boy at
U.S.
marshalls
. The
marshalls
got a big plan, and the boy's to be a part of it. He's going to pretend he's a bad drunk Indian. Going to catch him a whiskey man name of Watson."
Henry Lee listened to the plan, both surprised and not a little concerned. It was not good to have a man like Tom Quick on your bad side. Quick was like a toothless bulldog; he might never draw blood, but once he damped those jaws on you, he could be a long-term nuisance.
He'd sat up most of the night, thinking, worrying, making plans on his own. He had purposely stayed away from his place this morning, knowing that they would spend the long day in the hot sun, waiting for him to come home.
That was both good and bad. The long wait would make them tired and careless, he hoped. But it could also give them time. The time they needed to locate the still.
If
they found the still, Henry Lee would go to jail.
It
was as simple as that.
If
he
had
been his father, he would have ridden over to Guthrie or maybe even further west and waited for things to cool down. But he wasn't Skut Watson. He wanted to have this confrontation, get it over
with,
for good or bad, and get on with his life. He would as soon spend time in jail as spend time hiding out from the law.
Of
course, he would rather do neither. If he could have what he wanted, he'd spend all his days with Hannah. But that was up to Hannah, she had to make her own choice. Right now, Henry Lee just hoped that he wouldn't be locked up in the penitentiary when she decided.
As Henry Lee rode up into the yard, his face broke out
in
a cold sweat. He expected Quick and his men to
be
hiding in the woods, but there were three horses tied at his hitching post. That could mean that they had found the still and no longer saw any reason to try to catch him in the act of selling whiskey.
In
that moment of uncertainty, when he was trying to hastily reevaluate the situation, a sound from the house captured his ear.
"I have found a friend in Jesus,
He's everything to me,
He's the fairest of ten thousand to my soul;
He's the Lily of the Valley,
In Him alone I see,
All I need to cleanse and make me fully whole.
In sorrow He's my comfort,
In trouble He's my stay,
He tells me ev'ry care on Him to roll
…"
Henry Lee sat on the wagon seat listening in disbelief for several minutes. Then in the midst of the deep male baritone and the poorly tuned tenors, he heard the throaty beer-garden soprano that he loved. Hannah was home.
Henry Lee pulled on the hand brake and jumped down from the buggy. With a lightness of his heart that was inexplicable in the current dangerous situation, he made his way to the house.
From the doorway he surveyed the scene in wonder. Hannah stood at the head of the table, her Bible clasped in one hand, the other moving rhythmically up and down marking time of the music for the singing. At the table sat three disreputable-looking Indians. Studying them, he easily picked out the young college boy and silently thanked him for his braggart ways and his big mouth. The quartet was mismatched and discordant, but it sounded heavenly to Henry Lee.
"He's the Lily of the Valley,
The bright and morning star,
He's the fairest of ten thousand to my soul."
"Amen!" Henry Lee called loudly from the doorway as the song ended.
All
four jumped slightly, but all Henry Lee saw was Hannah's face. Delight at seeing him warred
with
trepidation for her interference. Henry Lee wanted to set her straight immediately. Ignoring the men at the table, Henry Lee walked directly to his wife and pulled her tenderly into his arms brushing her lips with his own.
"Good morning, Mrs. Watson," he whispered huskily. "Nothing could make me happier than hearing you sing again in this kitchen."
At his
words, the little bubble of apprehension that
had
been
plaguing
Hannah for the past few hours burst
into
warm sparks of happiness. She couldn't seem to take her eyes off him, and she couldn't stop smiling.
Hearing one of the Indians moving uncomfortably in his chair, Henry Lee remembered what he was about and
decided
that it was time he took charge of the situation.
Releasing Hannah, he turned to the man he assumed to be the leader, a nondescript Cherokee of indeterminate age. He offered his hand.
"Welcome to my home. I'm Henry Lee Watson, you've already met my wife, Hannah."
"Pathkiller," the man answered to the implied question, but didn't volunteer the names of the other men. He didn't like the way things were going here. He'd
had
a bad feeling about the operation as soon as the woman had invited them into the house.
And
now, after an hour of Bible reading and hymn singing, he was even more sure that things were going terribly wrong.
