Hell With the Lid Blown Off Read online

  Early in the afternoon Mr. Tucker and Streeter caught up to us in the buckboard. We had only cleared the road about halfway to town. Mr. Tucker had poor Miz Eichelberger in the bed of his wagon and he wasn’t about to admit defeat. He got down off the bench and took his team by the head and led them off the road and into the field, where the grass made better footing for the horses. All us fellows went along ahead of him and hauled debris out of the way and, foot by foot, we made progress. Of course, we couldn’t get all the way into Boynton like that. Every few hundred yards, Mr. Tucker would have to take the wagon back to the road to avoid trampling what was left of somebody’s crop or fence. Then we’d have to scatter sand or put boards down in front of the wheels every time the wagon sunk in the mud. Which was a lot.

  It was late afternoon before we made it.

  Shaw Tucker

  The streets of Boynton were littered with greenery, shingles, and pieces of fence. It was a mess, but the houses and buildings had only suffered minor damage. Shaw’s shoulders finally relaxed and he let out a breath when his small caravan finally turned due south onto the brick-paved main street and began to move at a normal pace rather than a slog. The spate of water that had rushed down the street had receded, leaving leaf- and grass-filled puddles and runnels.

  Howard McBride veered off toward his parents’ house and Trent headed to the sheriff’s office to deliver their reports. Shaw sent Charlie to Alice’s house to do the same. He kept Streeter and Gee Dub with him to help unload the body.

  They had just pulled up in front of Mr. Lee’s funeral parlor when Trent returned and informed them that neither Mr. Lee nor Scott was in his accustomed place. They were both still at the makeshift morgue in the Masonic Hall.

  Shaw didn’t like the sound of that. He exchanged a distressed glance with Streeter before climbing back up onto the buckboard. “Well, come on then, boys. May as well get it done.”

  Scott met them in front of the building. His normally jolly demeanor wasn’t jolly anymore. The blue eyes were heavy with concern. He shot a sour look at Trent. “Where have you been?” he barked. Trent wasn’t offended. He could tell Scott had been worried.

  “Trying to get the road northwest of town cleared. Not having much luck at it, either, as you can tell by the sight of us.”

  “I hate to ask,” Shaw said, “but how many folks have been killed that you had to bring them to the hall?”

  Scott turned to his cousin. “We’ve got six killed thus far, all from outlying farms. We’ve got us a clinic in here, too. Maybe two dozen hurt. Every doctor in town is here. I’ve sent my boys and whoever else I could find to check as many places as they can. I hear John Lee’s got a broke leg. How are y’all faring?”

  “Me and Alafair have some damage to the house but nothing we can’t fix. Lost most of our clothes and bedding, though. John Lee is banged up good. They’ve lost most everything. They’re at Mary’s right now. I’m afraid I’ve got another casualty for you. Miz Eichelberger was killed…” The expression of dismay on Scott’s face caused Shaw to hesitate for an instant. “Mr. Eichelberger made it through, but their house is gone. We’ve got him out to our place. Also, Mary found a little baby girl alive and unhurt out in the back pasture. Is there anybody missing a youngster?”

  Scott’s eyebrows shot up. “I’ll be switched! A baby? Nobody’s come looking for a baby yet. I do have the bodies of a young couple that got found over southwest next to what was left of a conestoga. Nobody has been able to identify them yet. I figure they were traveling and got caught in the storm. Maybe the little gal Mary found was theirs.”

  “May be.” Shaw thought this as likely an explanation as any. “Well, I guess we’d better deliver this dear soul inside, then. By the by, did you ever discover who it was that Gee Dub dragged in last night?”

  One of Scott’s eyes twitched. “He’s not a pretty sight, but there’s no doubt it’s Jubal Beldon.”

  “Ah. Tore up bad, is he?”

  “Real bad.”

  “You know, Scott, a white-maned bay showed up in Kurt Lukenbach’s yard last night, saddled and wild-eyed, with a wound in his side. My guess is that the twister sucked Beldon right off his horse.”

  Scott thought about this for a minute. “You sure it’s Beldon’s mount?”

  “It looks like his, for certain.”

  “Well, that’s interesting. When I come over here to the hall early this morning, the undertaker was waiting for me. He informed me that Jubal is a lot deader than the others.”

  “What did he mean by that?” Shaw asked.

  “Mr. Lee said it looks to him like Jubal has been dead too long to have been killed by the storm. ’Course he can’t say for sure, but by the state of the body he guesses that Jubal died a day or two before the storm picked him up and tossed him around.”

  “But he’s not sure? What did Doc Addison say about Jubal when Gee Dub brought him in?”

  “It was Doc Perry who checked him over. Said he had a broken neck and a punctured artery in the leg and he was probably slammed about in the wind. Said the sand and debris had scoured the skin right off him.”

  “So last night he didn’t think Jubal’s death was suspicious?”

  “Shaw, with all the hullaballoo that night none of the doctors had a lot of time to spare for the dead. They were too busy with the living. They turned those who had passed on over to the undertaker. But Mr. Lee noticed right away that rigor was advanced and Beldon’s backside was livid. So it seems likely that Jubal didn’t die in the tornado after all. He was already dead when the tornado skinned him. He broke his neck, all right, but that puncture wound in his thigh would have been lethal. Now, that could have been done by debris turned into a missile by the tornado, or it could be somebody slipped a blade into his leg. Mr. Lee said there was nothing left sticking in the wound. I looked at the wound myself, and it was a mighty even-edged little slice.”

  “I’ll be whipped! You think somebody may have murdered him?”

  “I don’t know, Shaw, but I need to find out. I hope it’ll turn out that his horse threw him on his head and he fell on something sharp to boot. But if it’s murder…”

  “Do you suspect anyone in particular?”

  Scott shrugged. “Considering that it’s Jubal Beldon, I got about a hundred suspects.”

  The conversation was interrupted by Dr. Jasper Addison, who loomed up in the door of the hall, his shirtsleeves rolled up and his long white beard frazzled and on end. “Scott, we’re out of disinfectant. Find out if anyone has whiskey. Don’t give me that look. I don’t care if it’s legal or not, and don’t you go arresting anyone who comes forth.”

  Scott laughed, relieved to have something to laugh about. “Don’t kick up a row, Doc. We have a bunch of carbolic soap at the mercantile, and it’s all yours.”

  AFTER

  Trenton Calder

  In the end, there were about a dozen people who lost their lives to that storm, if you count Mr. Warner and Nanny Jensen who were both banged up so much that they died by and by. The first funeral was held three days after the tornado in the midst of a rain. The cemetery was so boggy that Mr. Lee’s motorized hearse had to be pulled to the grave sites by horses. I hated that. I hated the idea of being laid to rest in the mud.

  There were two bodies that didn’t get claimed right away, and one that Scott kept hold of. It was the middle of summer so we couldn’t wait too long before doing something with them. Mr. Khouri had a refrigerator in the back of his store. No, we didn’t store the bodies alongside the slabs of pork, but Mr. Khouri did supply us with ice. After a day or two, though, Mr. Lee the undertaker had to go ahead and embalm the unclaimed deceased.

  Anyhow, it was going to take a while to identify the young couple that nobody knew. Scott sent me out to where they were found, and I set about searching all around for something that would help us figure out who they were. They had been d
riving a wagon packed with household goods, which the storm had scattered over half the county. I found their mule dead in a field, lying halfway in a farm pond. I trekked up to the farmer’s house to tell him about it so he could haul the animal out and bury it before it fouled his water. Eventually I picked up a piece of a book with “E.J. Mitchell, Mina, Ark.” written in pencil on the inside cover. Now, that book could have belonged to somebody else, but I didn’t know of any Mitchells and I knew most everybody who lived around Boynton. So I figured that would give us someplace to start looking.

  The other strange thing was that nobody came looking for Jubal the next day. It’s true that the Beldon farm was just about as close to Morris as it was to Boynton, and given the state of the roads it was likely that the Beldons were hunting for their kin off in that direction. But finally Scott figured that he’d better make the trip out there and let them know that Jubal had been called to his reward in a manner that called for investigation.

  Ruth Tucker

  Beckie MacKenzie was not herself. That was Ruth’s assessment. She supposed that she shouldn’t be surprised by the older woman’s somber mood. After all, Beckie’s beloved Wallace had left and her house was partially staved in.

  Beckie had always been an energetic person whether she was in a good mood or not, but since she had come home from Muskogee she seemed so listless and uninterested in the normal things of life that Ruth wondered if she was ill. Ruth tried to question her about it, but Beckie had nothing to say on the subject.

  And then Wallace came home. He came into the house through the kitchen, where Ruth was cleaning up after dinner. She was actually relieved to see him.

  “Wallace MacKenzie, I do declare! I figured you and Randal would be all the way to Denver by now.”

  He plopped himself down on a kitchen chair with a sigh and took off his flop-brimmed hat. He looked tired. “No, Randal and I have delayed our trip indefinitely. In fact, while we were in Muskogee, we both enlisted in the Army. We’re supposed to report to Fort Riley, Kansas in two weeks.”

  For a moment Ruth doubted her own ears. “The Army…” she repeated.

  A familiar flash of irony appeared in the blue eyes. “Try not to look so surprised, Ruth. Yes, the Army. We came to the conclusion that war is probably inevitable so why not volunteer before we’re drafted?”

  “So you’ve come to take leave of your grandmother?”

  He looked away. “More or less. We spoke about it before she left Muskogee, so she won’t be surprised. Grandmother sent a note to Father yesterday and told him that a twister had come through here while she was away, and she has damage to the house. Father was going to come and arrange repairs for her, but I said I’d do it. I just arrived on the train a few minutes ago.”

  “I don’t know if you could see it when you came up from the station,” Ruth told him, “but the cottonwood over to the side of the house was broken right in the middle and the top crashed through her bedroom window. Streeter McCoy had a look at it and said the upstairs is still structurally sound, but she had a lot of water damage in that room and water leaked down into the music room, as well. Trent Calder and my brother helped board everything up. It hasn’t rained today so I don’t know if it’s still leaking, but that wall needs rebuilding and the window will have to be reframed.”

  Wallace nodded. “I can do that, if I can get my hands on the materials.”

  “Streeter said that all in all it could have been a lot worse. Well, Wallace, I have to say that I’m mighty glad you’re here. Your grandmother has been in the dumps since she got back. She’ll be elated that you’ve come.”

  Wallace stood up. “I hope so. Would you do me the favor of letting her know I’m here?”

  It was a strange request, but it was his tone that gave Ruth pause. He sounded unsure, which was not like Wallace at all. She dried her hands and hung the towel over the washbasin without questioning him. “Certainly. Go on upstairs and have a look at the damage.”

  Ruth found Beckie sitting in her armchair in front of the parlor fireplace, as she had been for much of the day. “Miz Beckie, guess what? Wallace is here. He’s come to repair your storm damage. Ain’t that nice?”

  Beckie didn’t look up at her. “Has he indeed?”

  Ruth blinked, surprised at Beckie’s lack of enthusiasm. “He has. He’s gone upstairs to survey the damage. You want to say hello to him?”

  “…Grandmother.” Before Beckie could give Ruth an answer, Wallace spoke from the parlor door.

  Ruth stepped back and Wallace took her place beside Beckie’s chair. It occurred to Ruth that she ought to leave them alone, but she was too intrigued by this unexpected situation not to listen.

  For a long moment the two simply looked at one another, Beckie from her chair and Wallace standing at her side. It was Wallace who spoke first. “Father got your note. He was going to come himself, but I volunteered to come instead.”

  Beckie’s tone was subdued. “You didn’t need to do that.”

  “I wanted to, Granny. Who knows when we’ll see one another again?”

  When Beckie responded there was a quaver in her voice. “Did Mr. Wakefield come with you?”

  Wallace paused. “He did. He’s staying at the hotel in town, though. I’ll stay here while I’m doing the repairs, if you don’t mind.”

  “Does Mr. Wakefield intend to assist you?”

  “No, Grandmother, he does not wish to impose.”

  Beckie stood. “That will be acceptable,” she said. She left the room, but Ruth noticed that she affectionately placed her hand on Wallace’s arm as she brushed past him.

  Neither Wallace nor Ruth moved until the sound of a mournful piano etude drifted in from the music room.

  Ruth couldn’t contain her curiosity. “Whatever has happened?”

  Wallace shook his head. “She’s conceived a dislike for my friend.” He headed for the stairs and Ruth followed him.

  “Did they have a row?” Ruth asked his back as they trooped up the stairs. “Randal is such a nice fellow that I can hardly credit the idea.”

  Wallace didn’t answer until they reached the landing on the second floor. He slid Ruth a sarcastic look out of the corner of his eye. “Let’s just say she doesn’t approve of his politics. That’s as good a reason as any.”

  “Well, that seems unfair. My daddy says everybody’s entitled to his own feelings.”

  Wallace turned to go into his grandmother’s bedroom. “Gram has her own ideas about what a person is entitled to feel.”

  Alafair Tucker

  It was going to take weeks to clean up and repair the damage done to the farm by the storm. Fortunately, Alafair and Shaw had more help than they knew what to do with. As soon as the road to town was cleared enough to travel on, Alafair slogged to Boynton on the back of her gray mare to spend a couple of hours with Alice and the new grandbaby. When she returned home, her sister-in-law Josie Cecil came with her.

  When Shaw returned to the house at suppertime, he was amused to find that his eldest sister was on her hands and knees in the girls’ bedroom, scrubbing the floor with hot lye water. Alafair had been relegated to a chair in the parlor along with Mr. Eichelberger. She didn’t look all that happy about it.

  She looked up at Shaw with an expression of exasperation mingled with relief. “Sure glad you’re home.” She kept her voice low. “Your sister is going to ‘help’ me right out of my mind.”

  Shaw laughed and gave her a sympathetic pat. But he knew better than to gainsay Josie. He greeted Mr. Eichelberger and sat down next to Alafair. “What are you writing, sugar?”

  She handed him the list she had been making on a piece of butcher paper. “I took inventory of the garden. This is what we’ve lost altogether, and this is what I figure will come back. The potatoes, carrots, and turnips will be all right, but I don’t know about the squash and pumpkins. The greens are
gone but they’ll likely come back. The sweet corn is in bad shape and the tomatoes are ruined. I can probably save some of the bean plants. I’ll salvage what I can. I’ve already canned enough early vegetables to get us through the winter, I think. But we’ll have to make do with less.”

  “I thought I heard you, Shaw.” Josie appeared at the bedroom door with a bucket in one hand and a scrub brush in the other. “Alafair, you won’t have to do without anything. Between all us Tuckers and the ladies at church, we’ll round you up enough canned goods to last through next year.”

  Shaw winked at Alafair. “See, honey?” Alafair’s sour look prompted him to change the subject. “How are Alice and little Linda doing?”

  Alafair’s mood improved instantly at the thought of her new granddaughter. “They’re just fine as cream gravy. That is one beautiful little baby, if I do say so myself.”

  Josie placed her bucket against the wall and sat down on the sofa next to the silent Mr. Eichelberger. “Alafair told us about how all y’all’s clothes got ruined. Me and Martha are going to collect togs enough to tide you over till you can get some more made. Martha offered to do some sewing, and Alice, too, when she gets to feeling better. Walter says you all are not to worry about money. Him and Alice have plenty to share. After I fix y’all some supper I’m going back to town and betwixt me and Martha we’ll take care of Alice, so Alafair doesn’t have to make that trip into Boynton every day unless she wants to. Oh, by the way, Shaw, my boy Joe went on the train to Okmulgee yesterday and talked to Charles. His lumber yard didn’t suffer any storm damage. He will sell you the lumber y’all need for repairs at a discount.”

  One corner of Shaw’s mouth twisted up in his signature quirky smile. “Charles may be family, but what say we let him speak for himself on that matter?”

  “Charles will sell you the lumber at a discount.” Josie was firm on that point.