Crying Blood - An Alafair Tucker Mystery Read online

  Scott sagged in his chair before pushing himself to his feet, resigned. No pot roast for him for a while longer. “I’ll go by there right now. Go ’round to my house for me and tell Hattie where I am and that I’ll be home as soon as I can.”

  Chapter Forty-nine

  Gee Dub leaned back on his elbows and stretched his legs out toward the fire. Curly black tendrils of hair stuck out from under his cowboy hat at odd intervals. The sight made Shaw smile. The boy had inherited his mother’s hair. Alafair’s dark, wavy, tresses had never been ruled, as far as he knew. Much like Alafair herself.

  Shaw poked at the coals with a stick. “I wish we had a springhouse at home, son. When I was a lad, back yonder around Mountain Home, we had a springhouse made of rock that straddled the creek. That spring water was cold as ice all year around. Ma kept her milk and butter in there. When it was summer, us children would go inside and dangle our bare feet in that cold water till they turned blue. I swear, you couldn’t hardly feel your feet to walk, and we’d reel around like drunks, laughing to beat all.”

  Gee Dub listened without comment and Shaw wondered if the young man was thinking that his father had lost his mind.

  He continued. “I’ve been reminiscing on my folks a lot lately. I always do, come butchering time. I don’t know if you remember, but the woods are full of white tail deer back in them Arkansas hills. Every winter when I was a kid, Pa and us boys would go deer hunting. Pa’d bring back a young buck and him and Mama would dress it and hang it up to smoke in a hollow log. There ain’t so many deer around here any more. Not like when we first moved to the Indian Territory. Them as hunt their own meat have to make do with small game now.”

  Gee Dub crossed one booted ankle over the other. “I’ve dressed a deer or two in my time. I don’t miss it. I never was overfond of venison, anyway. It’s too gamey for me.” He sat up and brushed a speck off the leg of his trousers. “It’s gotten chilly. Damp, too. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a fog tonight.”

  The thought caused Shaw to shudder. “I hope not.” He poked at the fire again, causing a smoldering log to collapse and send up a shower of sparks. He looked up. Stars were beginning to pop out of the greying vault of sky overhead. “It’s finally getting dark.”

  Gee Dub regarded him from across the fire pit, the expression in his dark eyes full of speculation. “What are you going to do now, Dad?”

  Shaw didn’t look at him. “I’m going to make a fuss with the fire and hope he’s watching me. Crying Blood followed me home because he thought he heard the haint call my name, and I believe that he did.”

  “You think the man who killed Crying Blood is someone who knows you?”

  “I do.”

  “And you know him?”

  “I think so.” Shaw reached into the saddle bag on the ground next to him and pulled out the muslin bag. He fished a fatty piece of pork out of the salt, impaled it on an applewood spit he had whittled down and soaked in water, and staked it over the fire. Gee Dub watched with interest as Shaw placed his three-legged spider in a hollowed out place in the coals, right under the meat. It was only a few moments before the pork began to cook and the fat to melt, dripping with slow, musical, thwunks into the skillet. A delectable smell wafted out over the clearing and Gee Dub drew in a deep lungful. “You sure do aim to lure him.”

  Shaw didn’t answer. When the outside of the pork began to char, he sawed off a hunk of juicy pinkish-white meat and handed it to his son.

  They ate in silence, their meal of roast pork supplemented by cornbread reheated in hot fat. As Gee Dub was licking the last of the grease off his fingers, Shaw began talking, his voice pitched low so only the two of them would be privy to the conversation. It was fully dark.

  “Bank the fire, son, but stack on the wood so it’ll burn long and high enough to cast some light. Leave that leftover hunk of meat on the spit. You and me are going to make a show of bedding down back there in the house. But I aim to watch that fire all night if I have to.”

  Gee Dub didn’t question the plan. He helped Shaw gather up their equipment, and together they retired into the house.

  The two men had to duck to enter through the lopsided door. “It’s dark as a dog’s gullet in here!” Gee Dub whispered. “Stinks, too. You didn’t run across something dead when you were in here earlier, did you?”

  A sudden beam of light gave Gee Dub a start. It illuminated a swath of the floor, then ran quickly over the walls and what was left of the rickety ceiling.

  “Is that the electric flashlight I gave you a while back?” Gee Dub asked, delighted.

  Shaw flicked the light off, plunging them back into blackness. “It is, son, and it’s been right handy lately. The only trouble with it is that the battery don’t last very long and I didn’t bring a spare on this trip. So I only aim to use it when I have to. Let’s spread our blankets here on this patch of floor by the door. I tested it earlier today, and I think the floor boards here are in fair shape.”

  They shuffled around in the dark as best they could, unrolling and arranging bedrolls, bumping into each other, fearful of moving around too much lest they fall through a hole or splinter a plank beneath them. It got easier as their eyes adjusted to the dark. The moon rose while they were working. It cast a dim light through the window and door openings and the myriad cracks in the walls.

  Shaw positioned himself in front of the door, far enough back that he couldn’t be seen from the outside yet near enough to the entry to give him a straight, clear view of the campfire. Gee Dub set himself up to his father’s right. He had discovered a collapsed area of wall that afforded him not only a good line of sight, but provided a perfect place to rest the barrel of his rifle.

  After they were arranged to their satisfaction, the clicks and thumps of two men checking their firearms and ammunition were the only sounds disturbing the silence.

  Gee Dub crossed his legs Indian style and positioned his Winchester across his lap. The low-burning fire in the clearing some ten yards away cast an eerie bubble of light around itself, illuminating not much more than the piece of meat still suspended on a spit just to the side of the pit.

  Shaw’s disembodied voice spoke to him out of the blackness. “If you want to sleep a spell, son, I’ll wake you when I get tired.”

  “I’ll watch with you for a bit, Dad.”

  “All right, then. But we’d better keep the talk to a minimum. I want the villain to think we’re asleep.”

  Gee Dub glanced to his left. He could barely see Shaw’s shape next to him, a darker figure against the darkness. “Don’t worry, Dad. I never miss an opportunity to shut up.”

  The two of them watched together in silence most of the night. The stars were very bright until past midnight, when a fog began to come up. At first it was only ghostly wisps floating up off the ground, becoming caught like drifting white spider webs in the top branches of the trees. Eventually it rose up from the forest floor to meet the tree-captured shreds, and the stars were obscured. A grey veil moved slowly out from the woods, flowing like smoke and water into the clearing. The trees became mere shadows through the mist. The fire was still visible, glowing embers and an occasional small lick of flame. Even so, Shaw was filled with dread that the fog would thicken even more before morning and even if his quarry did appear, he wouldn’t be able to see him.

  One chance, Jesus, he prayed. I know that Scott, or Barger, or Lord forfend, Alafair, will show up in the morning, and if that happens the killer will go to ground. This is my one chance, slim as it is. If I’ve figured this right, Lord, give me the chance to do justice. His mind stilled for a moment as he watched the campfire glow through the fog. An image of earnest young Crying Blood, dressed in his antique Creek garb, determined to set things right, rose up unbidden. Shaw added to his prayer. Master of Breath, make things straight.

  Gee Dub had fallen asleep, but there was no danger of that for Shaw.

  Chapter Fifty

  Alafair sat in the kitchen in the d
ark, clad only in her nightgown, thick socks and a shawl, her long, dark hair in a braid down her back. It was cold and her breath fogged in the air. All the children were asleep, the only sound in the house the tick, tick, of the clock on the shelf in the parlor. The moon was beginning to wane, but it still cast enough light for her to see that a frost was forming on the windowpanes. It was close to midnight. She was wondering how one could be so filled with icy terror and still function as though everything were normal.

  The sound of her own breathing coupled with the rhythmic tick of the clock caused her to fall into a reverie. She remembered those months, years before, when Shaw had gone to work for Roane Hawkins. That was a hard time. She and the children were living with Shaw’s parents after the baby died. How kind Sally had been to open her home to a depressed twenty-five-year-old girl with five little children and a husband who was away for weeks at a time. It made her cheeks burn to think how much of an imposition they must have been. But her mother-in-law had acted as if it were the greatest delight to have them. Alafair still half-wondered if Shaw hadn’t taken the job out by Oktaha partially to give himself a break from his wife’s gloomy presence.

  She had moved like a mechanical woman through her days, doing whatever she had to do to pull her weight around Sally’s house. In her mind’s eye, she could still see Martha’s anxious little face watching her every move. She had tried to smile more, just to reassure the children, but hadn’t been able to manage it.

  She had sat for hours, every free moment she had, in her bedroom with a lap-sized quilt frame before her, piecing a quilt for Shaw to take to Oktaha with him after his next visit home. She had made it out of hers and the children’s old clothes, so that he could have them all near him while he was away.

  She could visualize that quilt. She had made it in shades of red and blue, a spectacular Morning Star, the colors shading from a deep blood red center through the entire spectrum of reds, ending in a starburst of the palest of pinks. The star was on a midnight blue background, and the perimeter of the quilt was bordered with a band of alternating blue and white patterned triangles. The border was pierced by the four cardinal points of the star.

  Alafair could see her own hand plying a needle over one of the blue and white triangles. She drew a breath. Indigo birds, flying across a field of white. She recognized the triangle pattern of the border. It was called Wild Goose Chase.

  Shaw had taken that quilt out to the Hawkins place with him after a sojourn at home. He had never brought it back.

  How is it I didn’t remember that before now? she wondered. He said Miz Hawkins admired it and he gave it to her, along with most everything else he had with him. I was put out at the time, but that’s like Shaw, to be so generous. Whoever owned the bones that Shaw had found, he had taken a piece of Lucretia Hawkins’ quilt into the grave with him.

  “Mama?”

  Alafair started. “Oh! Martha. I didn’t see you. What are you doing out of bed?”

  “I could ask you the same question. Are you worrying about Daddy and Gee Dub?”

  “I reckon I am, honey. You, too?”

  Martha padded into the kitchen and took a seat at the table across from her mother. “Why did you tell Scott that it was all right to wait for morning to hunt them? There’s no telling what could happen between now and tomorrow.”

  Alafair’s gaze returned to the frost-covered window. “Scott will have a better chance of finding them in the daytime. Besides, Daddy can take care of himself.”

  “What about Gee?”

  “He’s with your daddy. Otherwise he would have come back home.”

  “Well, if he couldn’t persuade Daddy to give up his chase, he should have come back anyway and got some help.”

  In the pale moonlight that illuminated the kitchen, Alafair’s smile was barely visible. “I expect that Gee Dub is the one who got persuaded, honey. It’ll be all right. It’s good that they’re together. They’ll watch out for each other.”

  Martha was surprised that Alafair had so much faith in Gee Dub’s abilities. In her mind, her mother still thought of them all as drooling infants. “You really think it’ll be all right?”

  “I do.” Alafair reached across the table and squeezed Martha’s hand. “I know your father.”

  Against all reason, the certainty with which Alafair uttered this statement made Martha feel better. She rose and circled the table to give her mother a hug, then went back to bed.

  Alafair sat where she was, in the dark, making contingency plans for life as a widow.

  Chapter Fifty-one

  Shaw sat with his back up against his saddle, slumped forward, his knees raised and one hand placed on the rifle next to him on the floor. He was staring at the clearing, hypnotized by the eddying fog and the flicker of the fire. He heard an indistinct noise. He didn’t move, but his eyes widened as he listened. The fog diffused and misdirected sound, so there was no way to tell where it came from.

  He saw a movement at the far edge of the clearing and leaned forward, hardly daring to breathe. Was he imagining it?

  No, there it was. A hulking shape, hunkered close to the ground. It scuttled toward the fire, stopped, crept forward again.

  Shaw felt a stab of disappointment. An animal. Then the figure raised up on two feet and lifted its head. The fog was too thick to allow him to make out detail, but even through the gray veil he could see the figure’s tangled crown of white hair.

  Shaw reached out a hand and touched Gee Dub’s arm. The young man sat up, instantly awake.

  Shaw pointed toward the clearing and heard Gee Dub draw a breath. “When I speak,” Shaw whispered, “you shine this light on him.” He held out the flashlight, and when Gee Dub reached for it Shaw seized his wrist. “No matter what happens I don’t want you shooting anybody. So if it comes to the worst, you high tail it out of here and bring the law.”

  “Dad…” Gee Dub’s voice was barely audible.

  “Do as I say, son. Promise me.”

  “All right.”

  Gee Dub got to his knees and watched anxiously as his father slipped out the door, rifle in hand, and made a stealthy circle around the front of the cabin. The young man tried to swallow, but his mouth was too dry. If he hadn’t known exactly where to look, he would have lost Shaw in the fog as he moved away. He couldn’t help but feel impressed at how quietly Shaw was moving.

  Gee Dub held his Winchester under one arm and gripped the flashlight with his left hand, watching as Shaw crept out just to the edge of the clearing. Did he step on a twig or catch the firelight with the rifle barrel? Gee Dub didn’t think so, but the dark shape in the clearing suddenly lunged forward to grab the piece of meat from its spit and bolted for the woods. Shaw stepped forward into the open and shouldered his firearm.

  “Stop!” he called, and Gee Dub clicked on the flashlight.

  Was it an animal after all? It lumbered forward, stopped, looked back over its shoulder. The meat was in its mouth. It’s head was covered with a mat of white fur, its body with a brown pelt. It had one eye, milky pale in the beam of light. Gee Dub almost dropped the Eveready. A monster!

  Except now he could see that the fur was a mess of white hair and the brown pelt was a garment made of rags and skins. And the creature was holding a rifle of its own. It ran.

  “Stop!” Shaw called again, but the cyclops didn’t pause. Shaw fired and the running creature made a shrill noise before it disappeared into the woods. The flashlight started to fade and Gee Dub frantically banged it against his thigh until the beam strengthened. When he looked up he saw that Shaw was standing beside the fire pit, his outline clearly visible in front of the banked fire.

  “Roane Hawkins!” Shaw bellowed into the darkness. “Come out. I know you. Why’d you do it?”

  A moaning noise came from all around, scattered by the fog. It was a human sound that rose up at the end. Like a question. A shot rang out and a flash appeared from between the trees near where the creature disappeared. A ricochet pinged off a
tree behind Shaw.

  Gee Dub stood up, alarmed.

  Shaw didn’t move. “You killed your own boys, you varmint. It’s time for you to go back to hell.”

  Another shot split the night, another flash. Shaw raised his rifle and fired back. Gee Dub suddenly realized what his father was doing. He was trying to goad the cyclops into firing, then guiding his own aim by the muzzle flash. Gee Dub scrambled out of house and began to work his way around the edge of the clearing, hoping to catch a sight of the creature before it shot again. He wondered if Shaw remembered he was there.

  A third shot came from the trees. Shaw jerked and stumbled, but straightened quickly and raised his rifle.

  Oh, Jesus. Gee Dub dropped to one knee and sighted along the barrel of the Winchester. At nothing. It was pitch black. If he shot now and hit anything it’d be a miracle. He could feel the flop sweat start under his arms. He needed a reference.

  “Roane Hawkins!” Shaw called again. “You remember who you are. You used to be Roane Hawkins. You kilt your boys. You kilt Reed and Ira, too. You know who I am, Roane Hawkins. I come to get you.”

  Silence. Had the white-haired haint slipped away?

  A single, icy, sigh of wind passed, causing Gee Dub to shiver and ruffling the remaining dry leaves on the trees.

  The creature made a sound, almost like a voice. Shaw, it said.

  Two shots exploded at the same time, one from the woods and one from Shaw, so close upon one another that it was impossible to tell which came first. The two muzzle flashes momentarily blinded Gee Dub and he blinked desperately to regain his night vision.

  A yowl like a wounded dog arose from somewhere. Then nothing. Shaw took a step back and fell flat, spread eagle on the ground.

  Gee Dub sprinted across the clearing and dropped to his knees at his father’s side. Shaw was staring straight up, a look of surprise on his face.

  “Daddy!” Gee Dub grasped Shaw’s face with both hands.

  Shaw’s eyes shifted to Gee Dub’s face. “Did I get him?”