Will O Wisp (21 page)

“
I did when I was small. My
mother died when I was two years old. My Uncle Jack and Aunt Lizzy
took me in. Uncle Jack let me gather eggs and help him milk. I got
along fine with that nice old couple until I had to
leave.”

“
Why didn't they finish
raising you?”

“
I got older and could take
care of myself. My father came and took me home. I sure did miss
being with my aunt and uncle. Not so much because I missed the
farm, but I missed them. They had become my family,” Melinda said
as she looked off in the distance, reflecting about how it was
during her childhood.

The next morning, Sheriff
Lang rode in. The sheriff dismounted and came to the base of the
porch steps. He pushed the brim of his cowboy hat off his forehead
and peered up at Gracie. “I'm fixing to go over to the Graves place
and talk to the Mrs. You want to go along. She might be more apt to
talk with you there.”

Gracie looked at him
doubtfully. “
Sure, I'll go if it will help
that family, but Lettie might not be so happy to see me now that
Neff is in jail because of us. Can Melinda and the girl go,
too?”

“
That's all right with me.
I'll hitch the buggy up for you,” Logan offered.

When they arrived at the Graves farm,
the sheriff knocked on the door. Lettie peered through the screen
at him. The sheriff said, “I have to talk to you some more, Mrs.
Graves.”

“
Come on in,” she uttered,
holding the door open.

He said, “I brought Gracie Evans and
Melinda Applegate with me.”

“
That's fine,” Lettie
grumbled.

The children filed in and stood behind
Lettie when she sat down on a wobbly, ladder back chair in the
parlor. She pointed to the other chairs in the room. “Please, all
of you sit down.”

“
Shana is going to hunt up
May Jean,” Melinda offered.

“
That's fine,” Lettie
replied in a reserved tone. “Now what do you want,
Sheriff?”

“
I just don't have it quite
right in my mind about some of the things that Miss Gracie has told
me. Did you know about the new grave over in Miss Gracie's
cemetery?”

“
Yes, Miss Gracie told me
about some digging is all,” Lettie said gripping her hands tightly
in her lap.

“
Now Miss Gracie thinks the
woman she and Miss Melinda saw in the cemetery one night was you.
Was it?” The sheriff asked.

“
Might have been I was
there once,” Lettie confessed in a wavering voice.

The sheriff's head went up.
“
Why were you there?”

“
I just wanted to see where
my baby was laid to rest is all,” Lettie whined.

“
So you did have a baby?”
Rushed out of Melinda's mouth.

“
Yes, about two months
ago,” Lettie answered.

“
How did that baby die?”
The sheriff asked.

“
I never wanted to tell.
It's so terrible,” Lettie said with tears flowing down her
face.

“
Neff cain't harm you no
more. You might as well clear this mess up for us,” Gracie
declared. “If you're afraid of what people will think and say.
Don't be. Everyone will be on your side, and Neff needs to be put
away.

“
Oh, Miss Gracie, I learned
to ignore all the talk a long time ago just like when I'm listening
to the dogs around here, barking when they have something treed.
It's just I've been so scared for me and my younguns since that
terrible night. Neff came home drunk and like always in a fighting
mood. I've taken to hiding upstairs with the younguns out of his
way. He was usually too drunk to climb the steps.

One night, I forgot the baby was still
downstairs. Neff's yelling woke him up. The baby cried and made
Neff mad. He screamed at the baby to shut up. That wasn't going to
happen until I fed the baby, and I was afraid to come
downstairs.

I don't know what happened, but the
baby got still. Next thing I know the back door slammed. After
that, I heard the sound of a saw grating on wood and some
hammering. I figured Neff was making a coffin for the baby. The
next morning, the baby wasn't in his cradle. I really didn't think
he would be, but my heart was sore at the thought of what happened
to that little baby.

Neff woke up in that chair on the
front porch. He came to breakfast without a word about the baby. I
was afeard to ask him what happened, and where he buried the baby.
I just put the cradle and baby clothes away like the poor little
one never existed.”

“
Did Neff know Miss Gracie
knew about the grave?” The sheriff asked.

Lettie nodded.
“
Yes, he did. I told him Miss Gracie ask me
to tell him to be on the watch for someone messing around in her
cemetery. I never did let on like I knew what had happened to the
baby. I just wanted to warn Neff he might be in trouble with Miss
Gracie. I did like knowing where the baby was, and that Neff had
buried him proper.”

“
When you dug the baby up
where did you end up burying the coffin?” The sheriff
asked.

“
I didn't dig the coffin
up.” Lettie looked horrified. “I hoped Miss Gracie would let the
poor little thing stay right there even though we hadn't asked to
use her cemetery.”

“
So Neff dug the baby up?”
Gracie asked.

“
He must have,” Lettie
said. “But I didn't know it and have no idea where he would have
put the baby.”

“
That's all for right now,
Mrs. Graves. We're going to hunt for the baby's grave. We think it
might be in Gracie's timber,” the sheriff said.

“
If you find it would you
let me know where it is? I'd like to be able to put flowers on the
grave,” Lettie said.

“
Yes, ma'am, we'll tell you
where we find it, but we have to dig the baby up again I'm afraid
to say,” the sheriff said.

“
Oh, Sheriff,
m
ust you?” Melinda asked
reproachfully.

“
Afraid so. We have to take
the body to the undertaker in Locked Rock. I need to see if he can
figure out what killed the baby. What the undertaker finds will be
proof that the baby was killed. I'd be charging Neff with murder
then,” the sheriff explained.

When Sheriff Logan was back outside,
he said, “I'm going to get a search party to take a look through
your timber, if you don't mind, Miss Gracie?”

“
I don't mind atall. In
fact, we would all like to go with you,” Gracie said.

“
No need for you ladies to
go to that bother,” the sheriff said.

“
Yip, I think there is.
Shana and I saw a spot that looked like a grave when we were
mushroom hunting. That didn't belong to the same baby, because he
was resting in my cemetery at the time. Though I wondered if the
graves might have a connection. If we can find that grave again
right off, you might not have to search the area for so long,”
Gracie said.

“
If you say so, Miss
Gracie. I'd be glad to take a look at that place, too,” the sheriff
said, giving in.

The search party of neighborhood men,
Big Joe Wheeler, Junior Singleton, Millard Sokal and Orie Lang,
walked with the sheriff across the pasture, passed the pond and
entered the timber. The women and Shana stayed behind
them.

The sheriff said, “Spread out. Yell if
you see anything unusual.”

“
Exactly what would be
unusual?” One of the farmers asked.

“
A small spot where the
dirt has been dug and looks fresh,” Sheriff Logan
answered.

Gracie said, “The dirt might have wild
flowers planted in it. They might be wilted now if they didn't take
root. I'm going to head where we mushroom hunted and look
around.”

“
Shana and I are with you,
Gracie,” Melinda said.

Chapter
Sixteen

Gracie led the way through the trees.
She stopped when she reached the spot where she found the
mushrooms. After looking around for a few minutes, she shook her
head negatively. “Shana, I thought it was close to here where we
saw the wild flower bed.”

“
Sure and I thought this
was where we be, too,” Shana agreed.

“
Wait here, Sheriff. I'm
going back to my thinking tree and stand for a minute. This is like
an itch, trying to remember what I have forgotten. My mind is going
to keep itching until I remember,” Gracie said.

Sheriff Logan folded his arms over his
chest and watched Gracie walk away. Melinda and Shana followed
her.

Melinda whispered, “What's a thinking
tree?”

“
You will see. Aunt Gracie
said I could pick me out me own thinkin' tree if I want one,” Shana
said in Melinda's ear. “She will let you have one too if you ask
her.”

Gracie turned and backed into her
thinking tree. She stood still with only her head turning slowly as
she took in the scene before her. She studied the bramble bushes,
clusters of burr oak tree sprouts and the ancient hickory nut trees
that made up her timber.

The forest floor was a carpet of dried
leaves with sprigs of grass and flowers peeking through. Gracie's
face wore a puzzled look. “Shana, what aren't we seeing here? Do
you see anything different about what's up ahead from the way it
was when we mushroom hunted?”

Shana imitated Gracie. She put her
back against the thinking tree and narrowed her eyes as she studied
the same view Gracie had; trees, stringy grass, and gooseberry
bushes. She pointed. “Aye, now I know. Aunt Gracie, that big pile
of sticks wasn't there.”

“
You're right. Someone
started a brush pile since we were here.” Gracie raised her voice.
“Sheriff, we need to move the brush pile.”

“
Whatever you say, Miss
Gracie. Men, over here,” Logan yelled as he waved them
in.

When all the men were assembled, the
sheriff said, “We need to move this brush pile over. Miss Gracie
says the grave might be under it.”

The men pulled sticks out of the pile
and put them in another pile. As the men carried away the last of
the sticks, two small, stick crosses set side by side. One small
area had the mashed down wild flower bed and the other was freshly
dug earth.

“
There be two graves now,
Aunt Gracie,” Shana said in surprise.

Melinda's hushed voice answered, “It
looks like someone decided to start their own family cemetery in
your woods, Gracie.”

Sheriff Logan said, “Men, start
digging in these two places and be very careful with the shovels.
We don't know what we might run into until we get to
it.”

The dirt was already broken up so it
was easy to move. Orie and Millard stuck a foot on their shovels
and pushed down. Each took of a shovel of dirt and piled it off to
the side to be put back in the holes later on.

Outside of bird chatter, the only
sounds were the sharp slicing of earth by Millard and Orie. Gracie
kept her eyes on the trees in the distance. She had the crawly
feeling someone was watching them.

Shana had the same sinking feeling,
but in her mind, the eyes were those of a will o wisp.

When Orie was down a couple of feet,
his shovel made a thudding sound. “I've hit something, Sheriff,” he
said excitedly. He knelt down to remove dirt with his hands. Junior
Singleton was down beside him in an instant to help.

“
There it is,” Orie said.
“Wood.”

He brushed the dirt off until he made
out a small wooden box. Now he knew where to dig. He took some dirt
out along the sides of the box. “Now, Junior, maybe we can get a
finger hold.”

Junior helped him lift the box out of
the hole and set it off to the side. The box was made crudely from
old barn boards which were all Neff had to work with. The homemade
coffin matched Lettie's story.

Now Millard was down on his knees
brushing at loose dirt.

“
You find something,
Millard?” The sheriff asked.

“
I've got something, but
I'm not sure what,” Millard replied.

Orie got down beside him and helped
take out hand fulls of dirt. “What the heck?”

Millard shook his head in
agreement. “It looks to me like some sort of woven basket. Never
seen such a thing before in the ground.”

“
Can you get it out of
there without breaking it up?” The sheriff asked.

Millard pushed on the woven sticks he
could see. “I think so. Actually, this basket hasn't been in the
ground too long. At least, not long enough to start decaying. It's
just a little brittle.”

Orie helped Millard work by hand,
removing the soil until they could lift the basket out of the hole.
They sat it down by the wooden box.

“
Is that an Indian coffin?”
Melinda asked.

“
I don't think so,” Gracie
said. “I'm not sure, but I don't think they make coffins that way.
Besides, if an Indian baby died while they were here, I think the
tribe would take the body back to the settlement to be buried in
their happy hunting grounds.”