Susannah slammed some silverware down on the tray. "Melvin never got kicked by any damned cow. That story was just made up by Sarah Berkey because he jilted her."
"Bull."
"What?"
"Never mind, just take the tray up to Lydia." It's a hard lesson for me to learn, but if I bite my tongue hard enough, and think of Mama turning over in her grave, I can sometimes extricate myself from our arguments before it's too late.
"I'm gone!" shouted Susannah. Then, too studied to be an afterthought, she turned with the tray and gave me what I suppose she thought was a coy wink. "I almost forgot to tell you, Mags, but you had a phone call."
"I did not switch the prices on Sam's salad dressings," I said, perhaps a bit too defensively.
"Not Sam. This was from a man, a Jim something. Big Jim, I think it was. Anyway, he wouldn't leave a message, except that he'd call back sometime. And he called you doll!"
Susannah laughed like a blithering idiot and ran upstairs with the tray containing hot coffee. How is it that she managed to negotiate those impossibly steep stairs at high speed and not even spill a drop of java, whereas poor little Miss Brown ended up like a sack of ,.potatoes at their foot? A sack of mashed potatoes.
I decided not to dwell on that morbid subject any longer, nor did I particularly want to think about Jumbo Jim's call. My brief conversation with him had been far too much fun. If it involves a man, and is fun, it has got to be wrong, or so Mama always told me. When your mind starts to get too busy, or filled with unwelcome thoughts, the only way to clear it is to roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty. Dirty hands, you can always wash. A dirty mind, however, is a first-class ticket to hell.
I left the groceries where they were and went out back to help Mose shovel out the henhouse. We do it twice a year, when the weather's not too cold, but cold enough so that it moderates the fumes from the acrid droppings. The fall rakings, which include a lot of straw, are spread over the vegetable patch, and come spring, it's tame enough to make a lovely fertilizer. The spring rakings go on the compost heap. By late summer they've mellowed enough to assist the fall crop.
Our chickens are range fed, which means they don't spend a lot of time in the henhouse, except at night, or to lay. Often there's no one at home when we shovel. There's something therapeutic, almost religious, about shoveling excrement in an empty hen-house twice a year. It's not only humbling, but in addition to cleaning the joint, I usually feel like my soul has been somehow cleansed as well. Of course, it may be just the fumes.
"Say, Mose," I began, once the job was done, "did you see Mrs. Ream, the Congressman's wife, taking a walk this morning?"
Mose shook his head. "I didn't see any of the English this morning."
'Well, that's strange, because Mrs. Ream told Susan- nah she went out for a walk by the barn after breakfast."
Mose took off his straw hat and wiped his forehead with his coat sleeve. "I didn't see any of the English," he repeated, "but there was someone out by the barn."
"You heard someone?"
"No. Matilda did." Matilda Holsteincoo is one of our two remaining cows. To hear Mose talk, you'd think they were the daughters he never had. "What do you mean Matilda did?"
"She wouldn't let down her milk for the longest time. It makes her nervous, you know, if someone else is there."
"What about Bertha? Was she nervous too?"
Mose knew I was teasing him, but as usual he never let on. "Bertha knows no shame. She gave even more than usual."
"That hussy!"
Mose smiled despite himself. Then his face darkened. "Magdalena, which one of the English does that car belong to?" He pointed to the asphalt-gray jalopy once owned by the deceased Miss Brown.
"Ah, that belonged to the woman who accidentally fell down our stairs. Heather Brown. Why do you ask?"
"I don't know much about cars, Magdalena, but that one's broken in back. Where you put stuff. I think it happened here."
"You mean the trunk?"
"That's what I mean."
We walked over to the car to take a closer look. Sure enough, the trunk lid was open. The evidence suggested that it had been forced. There were scratch marks around the keyhole, and along the bottom of the trunk lid there was a series of indentations. It would have been obvious even to Melvin's mother that some- one had used a crowbar to force it open.
"What makes you think it happened here?"
"It didn't look like that yesterday."
"You sure?"
I thought I saw Mose blush. "I'm sure. I had my eye on that one. If Freni and I were ever to get a car, it would be one like that, I think. Not too worldly. Of course, we would paint it black."
"Of course." I peered into the trunk. It was empty. If there had been something worth the trouble to force it open, it was no longer there. The floor of the trunk was carpeted, gray of course, and, as I would have expected from Miss Brown, must have been recently vacuumed. But then, just as I was turning away, something caught my eye. Just inside the trunk, almost hidden by the curve of metal that formed the rear lip, was a single sunflower seed. Once I saw it, it was as obvious as a diamond on a coal heap.
Mose saw it too. "The Englishman. The tall, skinny Englishman. He eats seeds like that."
For some reason I felt immediately defensive of young Joel Teitlebaum. "One swallow does not a summer make," I countered. "And besides, Mose, does he seem like the type who could jimmy this open with a crowbar?"
"Freni could."
I politely rolled my eyes by turning my head away first. "Freni could do anything, Mose. She was born on a farm. I doubt if
Joel could even open one of Freni's jars of pickled watermelon rinds. I think it was someone else, trying to make it look like Joel. It seems too obvious to me."
"What do you mean?" I told Mose about the fire escape door being left open, and the trail of sunflower seed shells.
Mose pointed to the gravel at our feet. "Well, whoever it was, they chewed tobacco too."
Then I noticed the glob of still-damp spittle containing tobacco fragments. Hernia is filled with tobacco chewers, not to mention consummate spitters of all kinds.
"It was an outsider," I said. It had to be. I couldn't imagine the Congressman, or Delbert, chawing down on a wad. And
Joel was far too much of a health freak to do such a thing. Billy Dee came the closest to fitting the profile of a chaw chomper, but he was too much of a gentleman to break into anyone's car trunk. Especially a woman's.
"Maybe you should call the Chief," suggested Mose. I shook my head and practically stamped my feet.
"The Chief's off in Canada catching fish and saving his wife from going over Niagara Falls. Melvin Stoltzfus is his replacement."
"The Melvin Stoltzfus?" asked Mose incredulously.
"I'm afraid so."
"I heard that old bull he tried to milk will never be the same. He moos in falsetto now."
Old Mose didn't even have a twinkle in his eye, so clearly he believed the story. Of course I didn't. "Mose, I think we should just try and wire the trunk lid shut the best we can and say nothing. Who knows why an outsider would want to break into
Miss Brown's trunk, but Melvin sure isn't going to know either. So why borrow trouble, right?"
"Melvin is trouble. I'll see if I can tie down the trunk. But, Magdalena, I need to ask you a question."
"Ask away, Mose."
"Can Freni have her job back? You know how she is when she's not working."
"Can it be any worse than when she is working?" I tried to laugh pleasantly. "Okay, I suppose so, Mose."
His face lit up. "You aren't too mad at Freni, Magdalena?"
"Of course I'm mad, but I'll get over it. I always do."
"Good. You are like the daughter she never had. She is very fond of you, Magdalena. She doesn't really mean what she says. She just has trouble with her temper."
"Like me?"
He flushed. "I didn't say that."
I looked over at the field where Matilda and Bertha were peacefully grazing. "Tell her she's welcome back anytime. All she has to do is apologize."
Mose shook his head ruefully and headed silently for the barn. We both knew it would be a sweet-smelling day in the henhouse before Freni Hostetler said "sorry" to me.
I had just put away the last of the groceries when the first of the guests returned. The first one I saw, anyway, was Billy
Dee, who came bounding into the kitchen in search of something cold to drink. Having been in the woods definitely seemed to agree with him.
"I take it their protest was not successful then?" I asked, as I handed him a glass of Bertha's milk. Or was it the shy Matilda's?
"Heck no, Miss Yoder. We didn't see hide nor hair of them folks the whole day."
"Which, of course, was none of your doing."
"Exactly. It weren't my fault we got lost twice on our way to the game lands, even if I was leading the way, and it certainly weren't my fault we parked on the opposite side of the ridge from the Congressman. And when we did go into the woods for just a bit, someone took a potshot at Jeanette." He laughed heartily. "That really weren't my fault."
"Someone shot at Jeanette?"
He was still laughing. "Maybe it was a bear hunter! She sure don't look like a deer to me!"
"Mr. Grizzle! You of all people!"
Billy Dee sobered immediately. "You're right. I should be the last one to find this funny. I guess it's just my nerves working themselves off. Coming up here ain't no picnic for me. It's just something I had to do."
"Was Jeanette hurt?" It wouldn't be so bad if she got hurt just a little bit, would it? Nothing serious, mind you, but just enough to send her packing.
"Hurt? Nah, she was gabbing so loud she didn't even know she was shot at. Not till I pointed it out. Bullet came whistling right past her head and hit an old stump nearby. I dug it out." He reached into his pocket and produced a shiny lump of metal.
"Funny thing is, this ain't no rifle bullet. This is from a revolver. A Smith & Wesson.44 Magnum, if you ask me."
"You mean to say that someone tried to kill her? That it wasn't a stray hunter's bullet?"
He nodded. "Course, I didn't tell her that. I just said there was some blind fool of a hunter in the vicinity and the wisest thing was for us to get back to the car."
"And?"
He sighed. "And she agreed, after she'd made a few comments that I'd just as soon not remember. That woman has all the sensitivity of a brood sow in heat. Oops. No offense, Miss Yoder."
"No offense taken. Drink your milk," I ordered. "It's the best thing there is for nerves. Say, you wouldn't happen to cook, would you?"
He smiled gratefully. "I make a mean venison stew. Why?"
I crossed my fingers under the kitchen table. 'Well, tonight's Monday night, of course, and that's our traditional night for potluck suppers. You see, everyone at the table has to make their own favorite dish to share. Of course, you wouldn't be making venison stew because we don't have any, but - "
"But I do."
"What?"
He smiled broadly, like the old Billy Dee Grizzle. The milk must have taken its effect. "That ain't no problem at all. Got me an eight-pointer tied to the roof of my car right now."
"You what? I thought you gave up hunting."
"Well, now, I didn't shoot it. I picked this one up alongside the road. With all that shooting going on, them deer crowd the road for safety, and every now and then one of them gets just a little too close. Like this one done."
I nearly gagged. "You mean you want to make a road-kill stew right here in my kitchen?"
Billy Dee looked almost hurt. "This here ain't no run-of-the-mill road-kill, Miss Yoder. There's hardly a scratch on it, and besides, it was as warm and red as a fresh-baked cherry pie when I picked it up."
"Thank you. Cherry pie will never be the same again."
"What?"
"Nothing. Did anybody else see you pick up the deer?"
"Not a soul. I was the last car to leave, and by the time I pulled up here, they'd all gone in."
Call me daring or just plain foolish, but I'd already survived two whizzing bullets and was feeling surprisingly adventuresome. "Quickly, pull your car around the back side of the barn. I'll go open the main door. You skin and gut it in there."
The look on Billy Dee's face was priceless. "Don't that take all!"
"Of course, you'll do a good job of cleaning up in there when you're done, and you won't breathe a word of this to anyone?"
