Forty Dead Men Read online

  “I wish they would, and right quick.” Alafair glanced behind her to make sure none of the children were within hearing distance. “Shaw, I’m worried about him. What if he’s ridden to Okmulgee to confront Daniel Johnson before Scott and the deputy can get to him tomorrow? What if he’s decided to take matters into his own hands and give Johnson a thumping?”

  Shaw was not quite as alarmed at the prospect. “Well, Johnson could use a thumping. But that don’t sound like something Gee Dub would do. Besides, Holly’s well shet of him, so why would Gee Dub complicate things? He likely went out to sit on his hill.”

  “What if he does take a notion to beat up the man and Johnson presses charges? Shaw, he could end up in jail, or worse.”

  “Johnson, if it is him, doesn’t know yet that he’s been found out. Even if Gee did take a notion to ride six miles on horseback to give Dan Johnson a sock in the jaw for being a rat, Johnson would be so eager to keep his secret that he wouldn’t do a thing.”

  “Dan Johnson killed somebody, Shaw. He might be so eager to keep his secret that he’d kill again.”

  Shaw had thought of that, but he said, “Alafair, the whole of the Kaiser’s army couldn’t kill our boy. He can take care of himself.”

  ***

  But Gee Dub and Holly were not home for supper, or by bedtime, either. Neither Shaw or Alafair expressed their worry to the children, but the girls were expert readers of their parents’ moods and knew better than to ask questions. Supper and the rest of the evening were quiet affairs. The girls were asleep and Shaw was preparing for bed, one leg out of his trousers, when Alafair, already in her nightgown and seated on the edge of their bed, finally broke the silence.

  “Maybe they run off together.”

  Shaw paused in his disrobing, leg in the air, and gave his wife a narrow glance. “I reckon you’d like that.”

  “Better that than anything else I can conjure up.”

  “Alafair, you ain’t going to be able to save the boy that way.”

  “What way?”

  “Not every ill can be cured by the love of a good woman.”

  She shot him a look of mild insult and he laughed.

  “Maybe not,” she said. “But nothing makes a burden easier to bear like someone to share it with.”

  “Well, I do agree with that. Still, Gee Dub’s mind is full of troubles and I think he ought to deal with them before he can deal with anything else.”

  “Now, I’d buy that argument, except for the fact that Gee Dub himself seems more interested in that gal than in his own tribulations.”

  “He just wants to be distracted by that pretty girl and not have to pull himself together.”

  His comment shocked her. She thought of her two sons who died in infancy. “Some trials are so grievous that you can’t just ‘pull yourself together,’ Shaw. Maybe helping that poor girl is his way of helping himself.”

  Shaw had successfully removed his trousers and pulled his nightshirt over his head by this time. He sat down next to her and put an arm around her shoulders. “I know. I shouldn’t have said that. That girl has troubles of her own. She’s too apt to go off half-cocked. That’s what got her in this pickle. Both those young people are suffering in their minds, but there isn’t anything we can do to help them. I don’t know that they can help each other, either. It’s not like when our young’uns were little and we could kiss their skint knees and make it better. They’re just going to have to figure it out themselves.”

  Alafair leaned into his side. “Still, we ought to go out looking for them first thing tomorrow.”

  “That was my plan,” Shaw said.

  ***

  Alafair did not sleep well. Night was nearly done but the old red cock had not yet crowed when Alafair was startled from her half-sleep by the creak of the front door opening. She was out of bed and in the parlor almost before she had time to think about it.

  She could see a shadowy figure outlined against the lesser dark of the front window—a woman. She felt a brief pang of disappointment that it was not her son, quickly followed by the hope that Gee Dub had deposited Holly at the house and gone back to his own room.

  Holly’s voice came to her in a whisper out of the dark. “Mrs. Tucker? I’m so sorry…”

  Alafair retrieved a fireplace match from the mantle over the stove and fumbled to light one of the kerosene lamps by feel. “Holly, sugar, where have you been? We’ve been worried sick. Where is Gee Dub?”

  “He brought me back here. He’s gone to his room.”

  The lamp flared to life and Alafair turned up the wick before she crossed the room and forced Holly down onto the settee. Shaw had shown up, Alafair didn’t know when, and was standing over them, his hands on his hips and an expression of concern on his face.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Tucker, I wish I had never come here. I wish I had never brought this trouble to you. You’ve been so kind and I don’t deserve it…”

  Alafair cut her off. “Holly, where have you been?”

  Holly sighed hugely and leaned back into the settee. “I thought I had to know,” she said, staring at the floor. “I had to know before the law got to him if the man in Council Hill was Dan. I wanted an explanation. I wanted to hear it from his own mouth why he did that to me.”

  Shaw was aghast. “You went down to Council Hill?”

  “Well, I tried,” Holly said to the floor. “I didn’t even know where Council Hill is, just that it’s south. I walked out to the main road yesterday and tried to hitch a ride. But nobody who came by was going that way.” She straightened. Both Shaw and Alafair looked as though they wanted to jump down her throat and pull out the words. If only she were as eager to tell them what had happened as they were to hear about it. “I figured I’d walk it. I made it a mile or so, but my feet gave out. The blisters are still pretty raw.” Holly looked away. “It hurt so much I nearly cried. I tried to walk back, but I could only make it a little ways at a time before I had to sit down on some likely stump and rest a bit.”

  Shaw was still looming over them, thrumming with anger and impatience. “Miz Thornberry, what you did was not only dumb as dirt. If you’d got down there and the man is Johnson, why, he could have killed you. He killed before. Even if he didn’t hurt you, if he’d got a look at you and legged it out of there before the law picks him up today, it’d be your fault. Now, you let Miz Tucker fix you something to eat and get cleaned up. You sleep today and then we’re going to figure out how to get you back to Maine where you belong.”

  Both women watched, subdued, as Shaw stomped off into the bedroom. Alafair could see three pairs of eyes peeking around the lintel of the girls’ bedroom door. She made a shooing motion and the eyes disappeared. She turned back to Holly. “Where did Gee Dub find you? How did you get back here? Surely you didn’t walk back on them feet, or hitchhike in the dark. There wouldn’t be any traffic on that road at night.”

  “Well, I don’t know exactly where I was. I was pretty lost. Gee Dub found me somehow and brought me back on that big red horse of his. He does that, you know. Keep showing up when I get lost. I guess he looked for me for a while after I ran off.” Holly had gone back to staring at the floor. She hardly seemed interested in her own answer.

  Alafair let out a sigh of relief. “So Gee Dub went on back to his room after he dropped you off at the house?”

  “Yes, that’s what he said. He said he wants to sleep. He scolded me about as bad as Mr. Tucker did.”

  “Well, never mind, baby. At least y’all are safe. Now come with me into the kitchen and I’ll feed you something and get some more salve for them feet.”

  “That’s all right, Mrs. Tucker. I kind of like the pain,” Holly said.

  Chapter Fourteen

  By mid-morning the children were in school, Shaw was at work, and Alafair’s troublesome guest was sound asleep and out from underfoot for the moment. G
ee Dub did not show up for breakfast, but Alafair figured it was better to let him sleep. She washed the breakfast dishes, mopped the floors, made the beds, trimmed the wicks, and planted more lettuce.

  She was checking her pantry for likely home-canned vegetables to serve for dinner when she heard the chug of an automobile coming up the drive from the road. She reached the front porch in time to see Scott pull up by the front gate. He was accompanied by a hard-looking middle-aged man whom Alafair did not know. Scott caught her eye and nodded a greeting. He didn’t look happy. The two men walked across the flagstone path and up the front steps onto the porch, where Scott made the introductions. “Alafair, this is U.S. Marshal Amos Gundry. He came down from Muskogee this morning to go with me to Council Hill and talk to Harvey Stump.”

  “Marshal…” The way she spoke the word made it sound more like a question than a greeting. Apparently, the government was more interested in finding the elusive Dan Johnson than she had suspected.

  The dark-eyed man removed his hat and gave her a terse nod. “Miz Tucker. I’m looking for G.W. Tucker.”

  Alafair felt the Earth sway under her feet, but her expression showed nothing but mild curiosity. “He is not to home at the moment. Can I help you?”

  Scott’s eyes narrowed. “Do you know where he is, Alafair?”

  “Off about his own business, I expect.”

  “Was he home last night?”

  Alafair did not hesitate. Something bad had happened, and until she knew what it was, she was going to cast her wing around her son, even if it meant telling a lie. “Why, of course he was. What is this about?”

  Marshall Gundry said, “Miz Tucker, yesterday afternoon a tall, dark-haired man on a chestnut mare paid an unannounced call on Harvey Stump, who as it turns out is really Daniel Johnson. According to a neighbor lady, this man exchanged hot words with Mr. Stump-Johnson on his front porch.”

  Alafair realized that she was twisting the corner of her apron into a tight knot. She opened her hand and deliberately smoothed out the material. “Is that so? Well, as far as I know, my son was here all day yesterday.”

  The marshal’s nose twitched with distaste. “Well, I don’t have much use for any man who’d marry up with two women at the same time and then desert them both. But that don’t change the fact that when Sheriff Tucker and me went to Council Hill this morning, we discovered Mr. Johnson shot clean dead. I’d like to have a word with G.W. about it.”

  A rush of blood to her head blinded Alafair for a second. She blinked rapidly to clear her sight. “Dead?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Dead as Moses. We found him in his garage. He was getting ready to light out, it looked like. He had packed his clothes and there was bag of cash in the car. The neighbor lady says she saw Mr. Stump-Johnson alive after the dark-haired stranger left, but she heard a shot later that night. He was shot right through the heart at real close range. A large caliber bullet. Went straight through him and into the back wall. I dug it out. Looks like a steel-tipped thirty-aught-six. Rifle bullet. Dropped him like a rock. Whoever shot him socked him in the face beforehand, as well. It was an ugly, ugly thing.”

  Alafair could hardly breathe. “And you suspect Gee Dub? Why on Earth?”

  “I understand that the man the neighbor saw fits the description of your son. That don’t mean he’s the killer, but he could have been the one who argued with the deceased. I understand he is…friendly with one of the women Mr. Johnson wronged.”

  Alafair looked at Scott, astounded at his betrayal. Who else could have made that connection and told Gundry about it? She turned back to the marshal. “Did anybody see what happened?”

  “No, ma’am. The neighbor woman said when she heard a pop last night she didn’t think nothing of it. Boys are always shooting rats and critters around there. She didn’t hear no fight at that time, so it could be somebody surprised him.”

  Alafair grasped at the one bit of hopeful news in Gundry’s tale. No one actually saw Johnson get killed. She drew a breath and said to Scott, “Surely you don’t think Gee Dub could have shot a man in cold blood?”

  “I think we need to speak to him, Alafair,” Scott said. “So you have no idea where he is right now?”

  “No. Maybe he went into town to wait for y’all to come back from Council Hill. If I know Gee Dub, he’s probably at the jailhouse with Trent. Or maybe he’s visiting one of his sisters.” All she could think about now was getting rid of them until she could get to Gee Dub somehow and tell him to run.

  Scott was eyeing her funny. Alafair didn’t care. Scott was kin. He shouldn’t be casting suspicion on his own family member. If he suggested they search for Gee Dub on the farm right now, she was prepared to demand they get a warrant. But he did not go that far.

  “Well, then, I reckon me and Marshall Gundry will try to scare him up in town. When you see him, you tell him we’re looking for him.”

  Alafair felt her shoulders sag. “I will, Scott. You can count on that.”

  ***

  Once Scott’s Paige was out of sight, Alafair made a beeline out the back door, across the yard, and into the barn. Her knees weakened with relief when she saw that Penny was in her stall. Gee Dub was still here. She passed through the barn to the toolshed out back and knocked before she opened the door of the bunk room. He was not there, but she went inside anyway.

  The room was neat. Almost sterile. Both cots were made up with tight military precision. When had he purloined a second set of sheets from her supply? Perhaps he thought bedclothes on both cots made the room look more symmetrical. She crossed directly over to the cot he had been sleeping in and lifted the pillow. The ammunition boxes were still there, but now both were empty. The lone cartridge was gone.

  She found his rifle right where it ought to be, on the rack above the door. It was a good place to keep a rifle, out of the reach of curious children as well as women who were middle-sized at best. She pulled a chair over from the table and climbed up on it to haul the rifle down. She could usually tell by the smell and the condition of the barrel whether a gun had been recently fired, but the interior of Gee Dub’s rifle barrel was shiny and only smelled of gun oil. He had just cleaned it. She replaced it on the rack and climbed down, unsure of whether she should be disappointed or relieved.

  She sat down on the bed and took a breath. Her boy. Her eldest son, her beloved Gee Dub, born kind and good-natured, sharp and funny and smarter than anyone else she knew. If the devil threatened to end the world if she didn’t choose her favorite child, she would have to admit that, of all her darling children, Gee Dub might be the one. And now what? What had he become when she wasn’t there to help him?

  Alafair was still sitting on the edge of the cot, holding the empty boxes in her lap, when Gee Dub returned to the bunk room nearly an hour later.

  He hesitated when he caught sight of Alafair. Had she seen Moretti? His expression grew wary when he noticed the boxes in his mother’s lap. “What’s up, Ma?”

  “A while ago I had a visit from Scott and a U.S. marshal out of Muskogee.”

  “Ah.” Gee Dub removed his hat and jacket and hung them on the peg before seating himself on the other cot.

  “What happened to your hand, son?”

  He glanced down at his skinned knuckles. “Had an accident. What did the marshal want?”

  “He was looking for you.”

  His eyebrows peaked. “Was he?”

  “Seems some unknown person killed Holly’s pretend-husband last night in Council Hill. The neighbor woman mentioned a dark-haired stranger’s recent visit and the marshal wanted to ask you if you knew anything about it.”

  Gee Dub seemed at a loss. He stood up. “Johnson is dead?”

  “Killed by someone who was determined to make sure he was extra dead. The marshal said he was shot right through the heart at close range.” She hesitated. “Gee Dub…”

  He cu
t her off. “When did this happen?”

  “Last evening sometime. Son, did you do this thing? Did you ride all the way to Council Hill last night and kill Daniel Johnson?”

  Gee Dub blinked, and drew back. He looked surprised that she would ask him such a thing. But not shocked. He didn’t answer.

  Alafair felt tears start to her eyes. She had expected him to be mortally offended by her accusation, to scold her, storm out. Not stand there staring at her with an unreadable expression in his dark eyes.

  “Why would you think so?” he finally said.

  “You were gone all night.” She stood and seized his arms. She would have gotten right into his face if she had been tall enough. “Gee Dub, did you go there? Holly told me you found her on the road to Council Hill and brought her home. And now Johnson’s shot.”

  He gently lifted her hands off of him and backed away. He lowered his head and looked at her from under his eyelashes. “He was a poor specimen. Can’t say I’m sorry he’s dead.” He was matter-of-fact.

  Alafair’s tears were flowing, now. She removed her handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed her cheeks, but she didn’t allow herself to break down. “Maybe the world is better off without his like, Gee Dub. But that ain’t what concerns me right now. Tell me what happened.”

  Her eyes widened when he laughed. “Well, you see, Ma, that’s just it. I can’t tell you what happened.” He looked down at his skinned knuckles. “Sometimes I get lost. Sometimes I get so mad I go blind and deaf.”

  “Oh, son. The young fellow I know could never do such a thing.”

  He made a dismissive noise. “That fellow was killed in the war, Ma. The one who came back did do such a thing. Many times.” He put his arm around her shoulder, and was relieved that she didn’t pull away. “Ma, Cousin Scott or somebody from the marshal’s office will come back for me directly. It’d be better if I head on in to town and turn myself in.”

  “Gee Dub, when you were in France, you were a soldier and did what you had to do. That’s a different thing from cold-blooded murder. And let me tell you something. You are my son and I’ll do anything to keep you safe. If you killed that man, then he deserved it. If you killed him and can’t even remember it, then you’re wounded, and wounded in the service of your country, to boot. I’m not going to let anybody hurt you.” She was aflame with purpose. “You go saddle that mare of yours. I’m going to make you up a poke of vittles and some supplies and you’re going to take out. I’ve saved some money. You can have it. I’ll find out what happened, son. But even if I don’t, or even if it was you who did it, don’t you come back here. Don’t come back ever.”