Hell With the Lid Blown Off (24 page)

Scott didn't rise to the bait. Instead he smiled. “That's a good-looking carving knife you've got there.”

“Glad you like it.”

The smile disappeared and Scott backed up a step. “Hosea Beldon, I aim to take you into town for questioning about the death of your brother.”

Hosea was calm. “I ain't going nowhere with you.”

“Save yourself some grief…”

I don't know how Scott meant to end that sentence because he never got the chance. Hosea came up off that barrel like he was shot out of a gun. He grabbed Scott's right hand and slashed the knife right across Scott's neck.

It was so quick I hardly knew what was happening. I saw Hosea grab Scott's hand and a blur when he swung the knife. Blood spurted out of Scott's neck.

It was a pretty smart idea to grab for Scott's gun hand before he slashed, but there was one thing Hosea must not have noticed before he made his move.

Scott was left-handed.

My pistol was out of the holster but Scott was faster. He slapped leather and blew Hosea Beldon halfway across the barnyard. I didn't even get the chance to aim. Hosea landed on his back with his arms and legs flung out and the knife still in his hand, shot square in the chest and dead as Abraham.

Scott was still standing when I rushed over to him. His right hand was pressed up against his neck and blood was dripping onto his collar. But not squirting, so Hosea had missed cutting an artery, or even worse, Scott's windpipe.

He looked annoyed. “Dang,” he said.

I don't know why that made me laugh. I guess I was so blamed glad he wasn't dead that I lost all sense of proper deportment. I leaned over Hosea and felt his neck for a pulse, but I already knew it was no use. Miz Beldon and Lovelle had come out of the house, but when they got close enough for the ma to see how things were, she grabbed the little girl by the hand and took her back inside. I could see a couple of the brothers running toward us from the field behind the barn. That made me nervous and I drew my pistol again, but when they reached us they just stood around with their mouths open, thunderstruck.

Miz Beldon came out of the house again and trudged up the hill, looking like the weight of the world was on her shoulders. She put her hands on her hips and looked down on her son. Her second bereavement in a week.

“Miz Beldon,” Scott croaked, “I'm so sorry. He tried to…”

Mildrey cut him off. “Did Hosea kill Jubal?”

I could tell by how white his face was that Scott was beginning to feel the shock, so I was the one who answered. “We don't know, ma'am. The sheriff told him we were going to take him back to Boynton for questioning, and he just went crazy. If the sheriff hadn't have shot him, Hosea would have cut his throat. He tried, as you can see.”

“Yes, Deputy, I was looking out the kitchen window at y'all. I seen what happened. Now, Mr. Tucker, come on back to the house and let me tend that cut. Boys, y'all carry your brother to the shed and cover him up. After that I reckon you'd better get to digging a second grave.”

She took us back into the house and sat Scott down in a kitchen chair to doctor him. The cut was pretty superficial, thank the Lord, but it bled a lot. She cleaned him up, then put brown paper over the wound to stop the bleeding and bound it up with a cloth. Scott sat there like a stunned beast while she worked on him. I couldn't stop my hands from shaking, myself.

“I wish this hadn't happened,” Scott said after a while. “I do wish it.”

“Sheriff, Hosea always was an angry boy.” Tears started to her eyes, which in truth made me feel better about her. She blinked them back. “Now maybe he'll have some peace.” Mildrey turned her head to look through the door into the parlor. Her eyes softened as she watched Lovelle playing with her doll on the floor. Her voice was soft when she spoke again, like she was talking to herself. “I always figured that God was testing me when he gave me six boys in a row. That's why I called them all names from the Bible. I wanted to show that I was faithful.” She smiled a sad smile. “And I kind of wanted to signal God that I was on to him. I kept them warm, fed, and clothed, and handed them over to their daddy to finish raising as soon as they could be any use to him on the farm. I did what the Lord asked of me as best as I could, and at long last, he rewarded me with my angel. So you see, I bear a deal of the blame for the way them boys turned out. I didn't love them enough.”

Alafair Tucker

Alafair waited until after breakfast, after Shaw and the children had left for their chores and it was only her and Grace in the house. Mr. Eichelberger had gone back out onto the newly repaired front porch to take his accustomed seat near the front door, where he could sit undisturbed and ponder his losses in silence.

After the dishes were washed and put away, Alafair picked up her mending, took Grace by the hand and joined the old man. It was another steamy day, but the scudding clouds were white and puffy. No threat of another storm on the horizon. She took a seat close to Eichelberger and sent Grace to play in the front yard.

She picked up a child's frock and examined it critically. Too ragged to save. She laid it aside. “Nice morning,” she opened casually.

“A mite hot.” Eichelberger noted.

“It is that. But it don't look like rain. You expect Abra Jane will be in today?”

“Wouldn't surprise me none. I hope so.”

Alafair took a piece of paper from her apron pocket. “Mr. Eichelberger, I've been studying this map that Trent drew when he was here yesterday.” She handed it to him and he eyed it curiously.

“Him and Scott figured out that Jubal Beldon left his ma's at around half past four or maybe five o'clock and wasn't seen again until at least six at the Rusty Horseshoe. I know that's about right because Gee Dub saw him there when he went to fetch my son-in-law Walter at the roadhouse. That must have been right in between six and seven. He left there before it was quite dark, say seven? Then nobody admits to ever seeing him alive again.”

She looked up and cocked an eyebrow at Eichelberger, but all he said was, “Ain't that interesting?”

Alafair bit her lip. “See this line?” She tapped on the map. “It's the path of the twister. Trent thinks that Jubal Beldon's body was so torn up that it had to have been carried by the wind and battered about. He likely died somewhere along this storm path. Now, the twister tore from the roadhouse, past our house, and right through Phoebe and John Lee's. It went through your place, too, and the Bonds'. Gee Dub thinks he found Jubal's body right about here.” She paused and looked at Eichelberger again. He was watching her, silent. “In this fallow field.” Another pause. Eichelberger said nothing. “Directly behind your house.”

The old man had no reaction. Alafair leaned back in her chair. She decided to try the direct approach. “Did Jubal come by your house that night?”

Eichelberger looked away.

Alafair tried again. “Trent told me that Jubal was seen with a lot of money Sunday evening. Did he get it from you?”

The look of hatred that crossed his face startled her. She hadn't realized that the gentle little man whom she had known for so many years was capable of such a poisonous emotion. “No. All he got from me was an earful of hellfire.”

There was a long silence as they gazed at one another. Alafair's heart was pounding.

She broke the silence. “He came to see you that night?”

His expression changed in the blink of an eye. He emitted a gleeful cackle that scared her worse than the anger. Was he crazy? “Yes, he came by,” he admitted. “He came by, and then he left.”

Alafair was not surprised that she was right, but it still stunned her to hear him say it aloud. “Did you kill him?” she blurted.

“No.”

“Why didn't you tell the sheriff?”

“Because the next day the twister took everything from me, and I forgot all about Beldon. He come by just before dark. I saw him turn in from the road. He was coming from the direction of his place, so I figured he was on his way to Boynton.”

“Well, what did he want?”

Mr. Eichelberger looked amused by Alafair's flustered state. “For years Jubal's pa wanted the twenty acres of bottom land that I own over by Turkey Creek, but I never did want to sell. That's real good cotton land down there. Jubal threatened to spread an awful rumor about my family two years ago, but until that night he never did try to blackmail Maisie and me with his low down claptrap. Jubal liked having things over folks, but I reckon he finally figured out he could use his threats to get something that he wanted. He told me that if I didn't deed that plot over to him he'd see that everybody in town heard his vile rumor. I gave him a short answer. And before you ask, no, I ain't going to tell you what his lie was. It bears no relation.”

Alafair wondered if Mr. Eichelberger's short answer involved a knife. Did Jubal finally go too far and the old man decided to shut him up for good?

He went on. “I told him to go to hell—excuse me, dear heart. He said I should reconsider that answer and left.”

“Was he headed toward his farm?”

“I don't know. When I told him to go drown himself, he said to expect a visit from some white-robed friends of his. I watched him ride off until he got to the road. I turned around to go back in the house. Maisie was standing on the porch. I could tell that Jubal's threats had upset her. I tell you, Alafair, if I'da had the chance I might have killed him then.”

“Did you see anybody else? Did he meet someone on the road in front of your place?”

Mr. Eicheberger hesitated. Alafair could feel her breathing speed up, because she knew that pause meant he had seen someone and he had to get up his gumption to say otherwise. The old man was not a natural liar. “It was getting dark by then,” he said finally.

Alafair had to ask again. “Mr. Eichelberger, did you kill Jubal Beldon?”

When he answered, his gaze was straight and unwavering. “No, I did not. More's the pity.”

At that moment, Alafair wanted to believe him more than anything. She pressed him. “Mr. Eichelberger, did you do it?”

“No, I didn't, Alafair. Believe me, if it had been me, I wouldn't be loath to tell you.”

“You have to tell Scott what happened,” she said.

“He'll think I done it.”

“But you didn't.”

“No, I did not.”

“Who did do it, Mr. Eichelberger?” she urged.

This time he answered quickly. “I didn't say it was anybody, did I?

Alafair regretted her impatience, for she had just given him a route of escape. She decided to go for broke. “Mr. Eichelberger, I don't know for sure what salacious information Jubal thought he had about Rollo, but even if he did bruit a rumor about, everybody around here knew not to believe a thing he said. And everybody knows Rollo, too, what a good-hearted fellow he is.” She put her hand on his arm. “And everybody knows that Sugar Welsh is an upstanding, virtuous girl.” Marva's sister-in-law, Sugar Welsh, was a beautiful young woman who had worked off and on for Mrs. Eichelberger for years. Until suddenly she didn't.

Eichelberger said nothing for a moment, dumbfounded at Alafair's apparent ability to read his mind. “Nothing untoward ever happened betwixt Rollo and Sugar,” he said. “She was just nice to him. I think she felt sorry…” He hesitated and checked Alafair's reaction. A colored girl feeling sorry for a white boy? Shocking!

Alafair was holding his hand, now, trying to reassure him of her good will. Or maybe to keep him from bolting. She tried again. “Mr. Eichelberger, do you know who killed Jubal Beldon?”

The old man snorted. “If somebody killed Jubal Beldon, he did his fellow man a service. So even if I did know, I wouldn't tell you, Alafair Tucker.”

Trenton Calder

Scott was steady in the saddle, but he said nary a word all the way back to Boynton. I was worried about him so I was relieved when we finally got to town and I was able to turn Scott over to his wife Hattie, who nearly had a conniption when she saw what had happened. She left her hired girl to run the mercantile and hustled Scott back to their house so she could fuss over him properly. The fact that he let her carry on so told me how he was feeling about the whole thing.

Hattie sent Spike running for the doctor, and while we were waiting for him to come, Hattie sat Scott at the table to change his bandage. Miz Beldon had done a good job. The wound was only seeping.

“Trent, sit down here,” Scott ordered while his wife fretted over him. “I want to talk to you.” Hattie didn't look too happy about it, but she didn't protest when I did what I was told.

“Trent, you're going to have to take over for a while,” he said. He told me to go by the Western Union first thing and send a telegram to the county sheriff and one to the circuit judge about what had happened to Hosea. He figured there'd have to be an inquest.

Next, he said, “What we have to find out is where Jubal went after he left the Rusty Horseshoe. If he met Hosea and that meeting led to his death, we will likely never know what happened. But before we jump to any conclusions, we have to find out what Wallace MacKenzie and his friend were doing out at the Beldon place. So you've got to talk to both of them.”

“Scott, can't this wait?” Hattie sounded impatient.

He didn't look at her. “No, it can't. If those boys had something to do with Jubal's end I don't want them getting wind of my suspicions and doing a bolt.”

“They already done a bolt,” I pointed out. “They went to see Wallace's dad in Muskogee on the night Jubal died. But they came back. That does not bespeak a guilty conscience.”

“Then they won't mind telling you everything they did that night and when they did it. I know they left town, along with Miz Beckie, and went to Muskogee. Then Miz Beckie came back the day of the storm, but Wallace and Randal didn't show up again for another couple of days. I want all the holes plugged before the judge gets here. Randal Wakefield is at the hotel. Bring him in and question him first. Lock him up before you go out to MacKenzie's so they can't put their heads together and come up with a story. Then see if the two of them tell you the same tale.”